AND  OTF         ESSAYS 


%""#' 

.  ^^^'         •'.         ^p^. 


Ex  Libris 
C.  K.  OGDEN 

THE  ]  IBRARY 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


OF  CAL IFORNIA 


LOS  ANGELES 


THE    SOUL  OF  PARIS 

AND 

OTHER    ESSAYS 


A  GREAT  CITY  STRETCHING  AWAY  IN  ORDERLY  PROPORTIONS, 
ALMOST  TO  THE-  LIMIT  OF  VISION 

See  Page  17 


THE  SOUL  OF  PARIS 

AND 

OTHER     ESSAYS 


BY 

VERNER    Z.    REED 


ILLUSTRATED    BY 

ERNEST  C.  PEIXOTTO 


NEW  YORK:  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 
LONDON:  JOHN  LANE— THE  BODLEY  HEAD 
TORONTO:  BELL  &  COCKBURN 

MCMXIII 


COPYRIGHT,  1913,  BY 

JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 

NEW  YOKE 


All  rights  reserved 


PS 
3535" 


TO   MY  DAUGHTER 

MARGERY  VERNER  REED 


AUTHOR'S   NOTE 

f~\F  the  essays  contained  in  this  book,  the  two  entitled  "The  Desert" 
^^  and  "The  Soul  of  Paris"  were  published  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly, 
to  whose  editors  and  publishers  I  am  indebted  for  their  courtesy  in 
assigning  the  book  rights.  The  other  papers  are  here  for  the  first  time 
published. 


PREFACE 

In  the  opinions  of  many  the  absence  in  this  book 
of  what  is  called  timeliness, — that  eternal  treating  of 
something  of  the  immediate  moment,  and,  too, 
usually  something  expensive,  useful,  and  ugly, — will 
be  deemed  a  defect.  But  for  this  lacking  I  am  not 
sorry,  and  I  continue  to  believe  that  it  is  good  at  times 
to  turn  from  the  incessant  making  of  mills  and  goods 
and  railways  and  money,  from  the  noise  of  tramcars 
and  automobiles,  from  the  sensations  of  politics  and 
politicians,  from  the  bruits  of  the  latest  scandal  or 
war  or  catastrophe,  and  give  a  little  time  to  contem 
plating  the  stars,  or  watching  the  bees,  or  listening  to 
the  songs  of  the  seas. 

As  I  worked  upon  the  book  I  saw  again  in  the 
eyes  of  memory  the  broad  deserts,  the  sunlit  tropic 
lands,  the  sometimes  wild  and  sometimes  smiling  seas, 
the  fair  and  beautiful  islands,  the  great  cities  and  their 
lesser  but  more  lovely  sisters,  the  far  countries,  and 
the  strange  peoples,  of  whom  I  have  written  a  little 
in  its  pages.  And  as  they  passed  in  review  before  my 
memory  there  came  other  and  even  better  memories 
of  those  who  had  gone  with  me  to  those  places,  and  of 


8  PREFACE 

those  whom  I  met  in  the  wanderings.  Some  of  those 
people  dwell  in  palaces,  some  in  huts,  some  in  the  skin 
tents  of  the  nomads.  I  am  glad  to  remember  that  I 
found  but  little  difference, — when  the  great  fundamen 
tals  are  considered, — between  them,  and  that  I  found 
nearly  all  of  them  to  know  and  practice  much  of  the 
old-fashioned  virtues  of  humanity. 

Whether  my  work  in  this  book  is  good  or  not, — so 
long  as  I  did  my  best  to  make  it  good, — does  not  so 
much  matter;  for  the  doing  of  it, — the  labor, — has 
been  the  chiefest  thing.  And  like  all  labor  that  is  wil 
lingly  aad  seriously  performed,  the  doing  of  it  has  been 
good  for  him  who  did  it;  for  "Labor  is  Prayer  I" 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


THE  SOUL  OF  PARIS 15 

THE  DESERT 35 

A  ROSARY  OF  CITIES 53 

A  ROSARY  OF  ISLANDS 75 

EGYPT 89 

SOME  SOCIALISTIC  ESTATES 107 

SUNSET  IN  THE  SAHARA 129 

DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD 141 

THE  SEA 163 


"But  know  this:  life  is  terrible,  yet  it  is  good  to  have 
lived;  all  things  are  mysteries,  but  out  of  these  mysteries  will 
come  knowledge  and  truth ;  many  things  are  fearful,  but  there 
is  nothing  to  fear.  You  and  I  and  the  people  we  know  and 
the  deeds  we  do  and  the  mysteries  that  come  before  us  are  all 
mere  parts  in  an  infinite  purpose, — a  purpose  that  will  unfold 
itself  as  time  and  eternity  go  on,  and  as  it  unfolds  will  fill  us 
with  wonder,  with  awe,  with  love  and  devotion.  For  all  things 
are  good.  They  seem  bad  only  because  we  do  not  know  their 
purpose.  Fear  not!  In  this  world  and  in  all  worlds,  all  is 
well." 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


TO  PACE 
PAGE 


A  great  city  stretching  away  in  orderly  proportions,  almost  to  the 
limit  of  vision Frontispiece 

The  desert  has  the  same  spirit  as  its  mother  earth,  who  speaks  mes 
sages  of  hope  and  peace 50 

To  enjoy  the  beauty  and  charm  of  this  wraith  of  a  city,  follow  the 

Tagus  to  the  Alcantara  Gate 60 

Who  that  has  sailed  on  the  Tyrrhenian  Sea  .  .  .  can  wonder  at  our 

love  for  islands  ? 76 

That  mysterious,  low-lying  shore  against  which  have  beaten  many  of 

the  greatest  waves  of  human  history 104 

The  sunlight  falls  through  the  trees 114 

At  the  setting  of  the  sun  they  returned  from  the  praying  and  dancing  130 

To  look  upon  a  dead  city  need  give  us  no  sadness 160 

The  strongest  call  of  all  is  the  call  of  the  sea  to  its  lovers      .     .     .  166 


I 

THE   SOUL   OF   PARIS 


"For  a  dream  cometh  through  the  multitude  of  business." 


I 

THE   SOUL   OF   PARIS 

T  N  LOOKING  DOWN  upon  any  great  city  one  is 
impressed  with  the  truth  of  Belloc's  belief  that 
cities  have  souls.  He  comes  to  realize  that  each  city 
has  an  individuality  peculiar  to  itself, — an  identity,  a 
spirit,  and  an  attitude  of  mind  belonging  to  itself 
alone.  This  is  not  only  true  of  cities,  it  is  true  of 
nations;  and  if  we  look  deeply  into  the  characteristics 
of  any  of  the  nations  we  know,  or  of  those  whose  tales 
are  preserved  in  true  histories,  we  find  the  soul  that 
dominated  the  nation.  Cities,  too,  are  like  men  and 
nations  in  other  ways ;  they  have  their  periods  of  ascen 
sion,  of  maturity,  and  of  decay;  their  seedtimes  and 
their  harvests ;  their  youth  and  their  old  age. 

Of  the  ancient  cities, — for  it  has  an  age  of  almost 
twenty  centuries, — Paris  seems  to  be  the  phoenix,  the 
one  city  that  has  the  power  of  rising  young  and  virile 
from  its  own  dead  ashes.  It  is  not  sunken  in  sleep,  as 
Florence;  it  is  not  dying,  as  Venice;  it  has  not  fallen 
into  playing  with  masks  in  which  itself  does  not  believe, 
as  Rome ;  it  is  not  suffering  from  arrested  spiritual  and 

15 


1 6  THE   SOUL   OF   PARIS 

mental  development,  as  London;  it  has  not  resigned 
itself  to  the  stupor  of  sensuality,  as  Tunis;  but  it  has 
kept  pace  with  the  march  of  the  centuries,  it  has  itself 
often  led  the  march,  and  it  stands  to-day,  despite  its 
hoary  age  and  its  ancient  traditions,  as  the  most  mod 
ern  city  in  the  modern  world,  as  the  newest  city  in  the 
new  century.  And  its  thought  is  new  and  modern,  and 
its  philosophy — drawn  from  the  old» — becomes  new 
again  in  modern  applications.  It  scans  well  the  pages 
of  history,  so  that,  knowing  the  pitfalls  that  have  been, 
it  can  avoid  those  to  be.  It  scans  well  the  future,  and 
moves  forward  with  great  caution, — but  it  always 
moves. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  not  the  past  nor  the  future  that 
Paris  loves  best.  It  knows  that  the  past  has  gone, 
and  that  the  future  is  not  yet;  and,  without  grieving 
for  the  one  or  fearing  the  advent  of  the  other,  it 
enjoys  to  the  full  the  priceless  Now.  It  enjoys  it  tran 
quilly,  sanely,  and  soberly,  and  in  many  ways.  To 
develop  in  all  ways  is  to  be  able  to  enjoy  all  things; 
so  love,  money,  art,  science,  philosophy,  literature, 
nature,  beauty,  and  work  are  all  revered  by  this  wise 
city,  which  believes  that  each  in  its  proper  place  is 
good. 

Paris  itself  as  a  whole,  as  an  entity,  has  an  inde 
scribable  fascination  for  its  own  people,  and  for 
travelers  as  well.  Whole  libraries  have  been  written 


THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS  17 

of  it,  but  the  story  of  Paris  has  never  been  told, 
and  will  never  be  told,  because  no  one  knows  or  has 
known  its  story.  Whatever  one  seeks  in  the  world, 
Paris  contains.  Whatever  men  have  done  in  the 
world,  the  effect,  or  expression,  is  in  Paris.  And  so 
in  attempting  to  view  this  wonder  among  cities  it  will 
be  found  to  reward  being  studied  in  its  inner  nature, 
as  well  as  from  the  bird's-eye  view  of  the  lover  of 
panoramas, — and  that,  too,  will  repay  the  effort  it 
costs. 

If  one  stands  upon  any  of  the  heights  about  Paris 
and  gazes  down  upon  it,  he  sees  one  of  the  most 
fascinating  pictures  that  are  spread  upon  the  face  of 
the  earth, — a  great  city  stretching  away  in  orderly 
proportions  almost  to  the  limit  of  vision,  marked  here 
and  there  by  the  great  architectural  monuments  the 
ages  have  bequeathed  to  it,  and  lying  busy  and  alert 
under  the  light  mists  that  its  multitudinous  lives  cause 
ever  to  hang  over  it,  humming  with  its  noises  of  toil 
ing  or  playing  millions, — as  instinct  with  life  as  though 
it  itself  were  human,  as  beautiful  itself  as  any  of  the 
countless  treasures  of  art  it  contains.  The  view  of 
Paris  is  unique  among  the  views  in  the  world,  as  it 
itself  is  unique  among  the  cities  of  the  world.  Why 
need  we  pore  over  the  archaeologists'  tales  of  the  dead 
cities  of  Asia  Minor,  of  Egypt,  or  of  Mauretania? 
Great  Babylon  or  storied  Thebes  was  never  so  great 


1 3  THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS 

as  Paris  is.  Herculaneum  would  not  have  made  an 
arrondissement  in  Paris,  and  Pompeii  and  Timgad 
united  would  not  have  made  it  a  suburb.  It  is  worth 
while  to  study  Paris  both  from  within  and  from  with 
out,  in  its  body  and  in  its  soul.  We  may  find  that  all 
the  giants  did  not  live  in  the  older  days,  and  that  the 
ancients  did  not  know  all  the  wonders  of  the  world. 

Victor  Hugo  liked  to  gaze  upon  Paris  from  the 
towers  of  old  Notre  Dame,  and  to  send  his  imagina 
tion  back  to  the  time  when  it  was  a  Gothic  city,  in 
closed  within  walls,  and  forming  what  he  believed  to 
be  "a  homogeneous  city, — an  architectural  and  his 
torical  production  of  the  Middle  Ages, — a  chronicle  in 
stone."  He  grieved  for  Gothic  Paris  and  offered  us 
picturesque  but  squalid  Vitre  as  a  consolation.  But  we 
require  no  consolation,  for  the  world  and  humanity 
outgrew  the  Middle  Ages,  and  why  should  Paris  have 
been  expected  to  lag  behind?  Belloc  loves  Paris  best 
as  seen  from  the  historic  Hill  of  Valerian ;  and  it  seems 
to  have  been  the  Parises  of  St.  Genevieve  and  of  St. 
Louis  that  he  deemed  the  best;  but  the  destroying  ages 
that  demolished  the  Paris  of  the  saints  have  builded  a 
better  Paris,  and  one  more  deserving  of  love. 

Paris  is  well  seen  from  the  Eiffel  Tower — not  the 
least  of  the  advantages  being  that  then  one  does  not 
need  to  see  the  unlovely  tower  itself.  From  St.  Cloud 


THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS  19 

one  sees  the  city  over  its  great  wood, — its  magnificent 
garden  built  for  pleasure-seekers  and  which  seems  to 
border  a  pleasure  city.  But  from  St.  Germam-en-Laye 
the  farther  view  is  more  in  keeping  with  the  real  soul 
of  the  great  city, — the  soul  that  began  to  unfold  two 
thousand  years  ago,  and  is  still  unfolding.  One  sees 
the  city  across  the  green  valley  of  the  winding  Seine 
as  he  sees  its  history  across  the  dim  outlines  of  twenty 
vanished  centuries.  The  view  is  bounded  by  heights 
on  either  side;  it  extends,  crossing  and  recrossing  the 
tortuous  river,  on  over  tree-embowered  villages,  past 
old  Valerian, — and  there,  shimmering  on  the  horizon 
like  a  mirage,  crowned  with  its  dome-crested  hill  of 
Montmartre,  shines  Paris, — a  great  white  city,  a  great 
white  vision  floating  in  the  translucent  atmosphere. 
From  this  point  one  does  not  see  all  of  the  city;  indeed 
only  a  small  part  of  it  is  within  view;  but  one  sees 
enough.  The  picture  that  lies  before  one  is  softened 
by  the  distance  until  it  seems  perfect;  and  the  same 
distance  hides  all  the  city's  crudenesses  and  imperfec 
tions  as  the  centuries  that  have  gone  hide  the  cruelties 
of  its  history.  The  harsher  shades  are  all  toned  down, 
and  one  seems  to  be  looking  upon  a  city  that  is  perfect, 
that  is  finished.  And  that  great  indistinct  picture  is 
Paris, — Paris  the  ancient,  Paris  the  new,  Paris  the 
superstitious,  Paris  the  free-minded,  Paris  the  player, 
Paris  the  toiler,  Paris  the  philosopher,  Paris  the  mad, 


20  THE    SOUL   OF    PARIS 

Paris  the  saint,  Paris  the  beast!     For  Paris  has  been 
— and  is — all  of  these  things,  and  more. 

As  one  approaches  this  "great  human  sea"  he 
comes  upon  busy  suburbs,  dominated  by  tall  chimneys, 
belching  forth  forever  the  smoke  that  is  emitted  by 
busy  factories,  and  which  emblemize  the  busy  iron  age 
that  Paris,  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  has  entered  upon. 
And  beyond  the  factories,  rising  like  a  beacon,  the 
new  and  unlovely  basilica  lifts  its  high  head,  as  though 
to  proclaim  that  the  superstitious  part  of  the  spirit  of 
the  Middle  Ages  also  lives  and  remains  a  part  of  the 
great  city's  life.  And,  as  the  approach  becomes 
nearer,  one  may  look  upon  the  Louvre,  treasury  of 
the  best  and  most  beautiful  work  that  the  hands  of 
men  have  wrought  since  the  beginning  of  history;  he 
may  see  the  outlines  of  the  great  colleges  from  which, 
since  the  time  of  ill-starred  Abelard,  the  essence  of 
human  thought  has  gone  forth  to  leaven  the  minds  of 
men.  And  as  one  passes  through  the  city  he  may  gaze 
upon  crumbling  old  Notre  Dame,  mother  of  Gothic 
churches,  and  one  of  the  most  imposing  and  beautiful 
structures  that  men  have  reared  since  the  chisels  fell 
from  the  hands  of  the  old  Greek  builders.  One  may 
go  on,  and  look  upon  the  beautiful  and  the  unsightly 
churches  as  well;  upon  the  Tower  of  St.  Jacques, 
whose  beauty  has  outlasted  generations  and  dynasties ; 
upon  the  great  galleries  and  museums;  upon  the  few 


THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS  21 

remains  of  the  old  civilizations  and  old  architectures, 
at  the  great  schools  and  laboratories,  the  stately  homes 
of  the  government,  the  splendid  system  of  boulevards 
and  avenues  and  parks  that  have  served  to  bring  the 
country  into  the  city  and  to  make  of  Paris  the  airiest 
and  roomiest  city  in  the  world,  then  at  the  statues  and 
sculptures  which  are  the  stone  poems  bequeathed  to 
the  city  by  the  passing  ages,  at  the  monuments  which 
have  been  raised  to  do  honor  to  the  city's  great  sons, — 
and  yet  one  has  not  seen  Paris.  He  has  seen  but  its 
framework,  the  outlines  of  its  great  monuments  of 
history  and  of  accomplishment,  the  shells  of  its  great 
institutions, — but  a  part  of  the  body  that  holds  its 
great  soul.  For  Paris,  above  all  cities,  has  a  soul. 
It,  above  all  cities,  is  an  entity,  an  individual.  It  is  a 
city,  but  it  is  more  than  a  city :  it  is  a  true  microcosm. 
It  is  essentially  French,  but  it  is  more  than  French. 
It  is  the  great  World  City,  more  cosmopolitan  than 
ever  was  Rome,  great  in  more  diversified  ways  than 
any  city  has  ever  been,  and  more  beautiful  than  any 
other  city  that  men  have  yet  reared  upon  the  earth, — 
for  the  Lost  City  of  Is,  its  only  rival  in  beauty,  is  but 
a  myth.  It  is  Paris  the  unique,  Paris  the  intellectual 
capital  of  the  Western  world  and  of  the  white  race  of 
mankind,  Paris  the  greatest  city  in  existence. 

But  that  last  statement  will  be  challenged,  for  the 
pride  of  more  than  one  great  metropolis  is  concerned. 


22  THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS 

Let  us  examine  slightly  a  few  other  cities.  London  is 
very  great,  ponderous  in  its  mighty  bulk,  mighty  with 
its  millions  of  humans  and  of  gold  pieces,  the  capital 
and  metropolis  of  the  English  people.  But,  after  all, 
it  is  but  an  English  city;  it  is  English  in  its  every  fea 
ture,  and  English  in  its  soul.  It  is  bound  by  the  same 
inflexible  laws  of  caste  that  are  choking  the  people 
whose  capital  it  is;  it  is  fettered  by  the  same  iron  tradi 
tions  that  at  first  upbuilded  and  are  now  smothering 
its  nation;  and  above  all  it  is  forbidding,  and  gloomy, 
and  unlovely,  and  its  treasures  of  architecture  and  its 
lovely  places  are  not  enough  in  number  to  offset  the 
sombreness  of  its  dreary  miles  upon  miles  of  dreary 
red  brick  houses  inhabited  by  dreary  people  who  live 
out  their  dreary  lives  under  its  leaden  and  dreary  skies. 
Yet  under  its  grim  exterior  it  hides  a  genial  nature, 
and  to  those  who  know  the  way  to  its  heart  it  is  a  city 
to  love.  But  all  the  time,  if  one  will  enjoy  London,  he 
must  close  his  eyes  to  the  human  misery  that  hedges 
him  about  in  almost  every  quarter,  to  the  human 
wrecks  that  litter  its  streets,  and  to  the  great  gloomy 
districts — populous  cities  in  themselves — where  only 
poverty  and  vice  and  ignorance  and  misery  have  their 
abodes. 

New  York  is  a  great  city,  a  very  great  city  indeed, 
standing  as  it  does  as  the  flower  of  a  new  civilization, 
the  work  of  a  new  race.  It  has  an  undaunted  soul, 


THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS  23 

strong  arms,  great  riches  in  its  coffers,  and  high  aspira 
tions  for  its  future.  But  the  new  race  that  builded  it 
had,  in  times  that  are  yet  recent,  to  hew  down  the 
forests,  and  blaze  new  trails  in  trackless  lands,  and 
conquer  wildernesses,  and  reclaim  deserts,  and  establish 
new  institutions,  and  light  new  beacon  fires  to  guide 
the  steps  of  men.  New  York  and  the  nation  of  which 
it  is  the  metropolis  have  been  too  busy,  and  are  too 
young,  to  have  equalled  ancient  Paris  in  the  race  for 
superiority.  And  it  was  not  long  ago  that  it  could 
also  have  been  said  that  America  was  too  poor  to  enter 
the  competition.  It  is  now  a  nation  grown  rich,  a 
nation  rejoicing  in  its  newly  achieved  wealth  and  power. 
But  the  memory  of  its  days  of  poverty  still  abides  with 
it,  and  the  utilitarianism  born  of  that  poverty — of  those 
old  prime  needs  for  houses  to  live  in  and  food  to  eat — 
is  still  visible  in  its  body  and  in  its  soul.  As  the 
metropolis  of  a  great  new  nation,  a  nation  so  great 
that  it  does  not  know  its  own  strength,  so  rich  that 
the  tale  of  its  wealth  is  like  an  Eastern  fairy  tale, — 
New  York  may  in  time  also  become  a  great  World 
City.  If  it  does  there  will  be  two,  for  eternal  Paris 
will  continue.  But  even  now  New  York,  in  being  the 
greatest  city  of  the  Americans,  has  achieved  enough 
glory  for  a  city  whose  site  was  the  camping-ground  of 
savages  when  Paris  was  hoary  with  age. 

Berlin  is  a  great  German  city,  but  it  is  nothing 


24  THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS 

more.  It  is  the  tongue  and  the  hand  of  Germany, — 
hardly  its  brain  and  heart, — but  its  influence  is  not 
great  beyond  the  German  Empire.  It  is  in  all  things 
German,  and  a  little  provincial  in  being  only  North 
German, — staid,  rather  stolid,  not  so  beautiful  as  it  is 
substantial,  not  so  cultured  as  it  is  rich,  still  bound  by 
tradition,  dreaming  of  war,  and  knowing  more  of 
science  than  of  art,  more  of  utility  than  of  beauty.  It 
is  ambitious,  very  well  content  with  itself,  and  progres 
sive  after  its  own  fashion.  Vienna  is  typically  Austrian, 
which  is  to  say  South  German.  It  does  not  even  typify 
the  various  races  whose  capital  it  is.  It  is  the  fit  seat 
of  a  feudal  empire  that  has  endured  after  the  close  of 
the  epoch  to  which  it  belonged.  It  is  held  in  lines  of 
caste,  which  are  gilded  by  gentility  and  culture,  but 
which  are  none  the  less  potent  to  limit  its  progress  and 
stifle  its  advancement.  It  enjoys  itself  in  pleasing 
manners  of  gayety  that  have  come  down  from  an  older 
age;  it  is  finished,  accomplished,  refined, — and  it  is 
decaying  and  giving  way  in  the  world,  according  to  the 
inevitable  law,  to  more  progressive  rivals.  It  has  not 
the  adaptability  nor  the  philosophy  of  Paris;  it  con 
tinues  more  Catholic  than  Rome,  more  conservative 
than  Brittany,  more  feudal  than  remotest  Silesia.  It 
does  not  change  as  the  world  and  the  times  change, 
and  its  chief  interest  is  that  it  remains  as  a  living 
embodiment  of  a  civilization  that  in  other  lands  has 


THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS  25 

died.  It  is  a  greater  sister  to  Toledo  and  Venice,  but 
it  is  in  no  sense  a  great  World  City.  And  so,  after 
viewing  the  cities,  it  might  be  said  that  he  who  does 
not  dwell  in  Paris  is  a  village  dweller. 

It  is  Paris  alone  of  the  ancient  cities  that  has  kept 
step  with  the  march  of  the  ages.  It  retains  some  of 
the  walls  and  towers  of  the  ancient  architectures  that 
existed  coeval  with  its  ancient  systems,  yet  it  has  gone 
from  their  epochs  as  it  has  gone  from  the  systems  they 
contained.  And  the  monuments  that  stand  from  the 
older  ages  serve  as  reminders  to  the  great  city  of  the 
glories  it  has  achieved,  of  the  evils  it  has  endured  and 
conquered,  of  the  sins  it  has  done,  and  of  the  penances 
it  has  done  for  its  sins.  For  Paris  has  sinned  mightily, 
and  it  has  done  mighty  penance.  It  might  be  likened 
to  a  great  man,  marvelous  in  ability,  incredible  in 
strength  both  of  sinew  and  spirit,  yet  who  is  erratic 
and  sometimes  uncontrolled,  who  inherits  from  the  past 
not  only  the  polish  of  all  education  and  refinement, 
but  also  old  strains  of  barbarity  that  sometimes 
rise  above  his  erudition  and  philosophy  and  cause 
him  to  return  to  the  savagery  in  which  his  race 
was  born.  Paris  has  risen  like  a  demon;  it  has  revelled 
in  blood  like  a  fiend;  it  has  gyrated  in  madness  like  a 
maniac.  And  yet  even  in  its  madnesses  and  its  excesses 
it  has  been  ever  dominated  by  the  great  soul  that  sits 
enthroned  within  it,  and  that  has  always  been  potent 


26  THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS 

to  extract  good  from  the  evils  it  has  done.  It  has  risen 
in  blind  rage,  but  when  it  has  done  so  an  evil  throne 
has  been  overturned  or  an  iniquitous  system  has  been 
removed  from  among  the  shackles  that  bind  humanity. 
Upon  the  ashes  of  its  evils  it  has  always  builded  new 
structures  of  good.  Except  the  invention  of  printing 
and  the  discovery  of  America,  the  French  Revolu 
tion  has  been  the  most  potent  event  for  human  ad 
vancement  of  which  history  tells;  and  its  madnesses 
and  its  mighty  beneficent  after-results  are  typical  of 
the  fierceness  and  the  wisdom  of  Paris. 

Certain  esoteric  schools  believe  that  the  destiny 
and  progress  of  the  world  are  guided  by  certain  good 
and  wise  beings  called  Mahatmas,  who,  from  silent 
places  of  peace,  send  forth  the  thoughts  and  inspira 
tions  that  cause  humanity's  progress.  If  one  might 
draw  a  comparison  from  this  belief,  he  might  say  that 
below  the  great  Soul  of  Paris  there  exists  and  functions 
a  band  of  lesser  spirits  who  guide  and  direct  the  indi 
vidual  things  that  the  great  city  stands  for, — as  pro 
gress,  freedom,  science,  art,  and  literature.  And  in 
order  to  come  closer  to  the  soul  that  guides  all,  it 
may  be  well  to  observe  what  these  lesser  divinities  of 
the  city  are  accomplishing.  The  Spirit  of  Architecture 
in  Paris,  in  times  past,  wrote  as  beautiful  messages  in 
stone  as  have  been  given  to  humanity  since  the  deca 
dence  of  Greece.  It  builded  in  the  forms  of  Rome  as 


THE    SOUL    OF   PARIS  27 

well  as  did  Rome  itself.  It  inspired  the  Crusaders  to 
carry  the  pointed  arch  of  the  Arabs  home  from  the 
wars,  and  from  that  arch  it  created  Gothic  architecture, 
in  which  could  be  expressed  all  the  passions  of  the  hu 
man  soul.  It  joined  with  Italy  and  perfected  the  Re 
naissance.  And  then  it  slept.  And  it  sleeps  to-day,  and 
in  its  seat  sits  a  false  Spirit  of  Architecture,  that  is  cold, 
and  hollow,  and  untrue,  and  arrogant,  and  pitiful,  and 
wholly  unlovely.  The  Eiffel  Tower  is  one  of  its  fruits, 
— a  thing  of  strength  and  might,  but  with  no  softness 
in  its  soul,  no  grace  in  its  spirit,  and  no  beauty  on 
its  face.  The  Grand  Palace  is  another  of  its  fruits, — 
and  is  a  fit  emblem  of  brazen  self-assertion,  of  mock 
gentility,  and  of  the  flaunting  of  vulgar  riches  in  the 
abashed  face  of  Taste.  It  is  worse  than  the  Trocadero 
only  in  that  it  lays  claim  to  being  better.  The  new 
Hotel  de  Ville  of  Tours  emanated  from  the  false  spirit 
that  has  usurped  this  throne  in  Paris, — and  it,  like  the 
cold  and  soulless  basilica  of  Montmartre,  is  so  hideous 
as  to  be  sinful.  Archaeologists  have  grieved  because 
they  could  find  no  traces  of  the  private  homes  of  Egypt. 
If  they  were  as  unlovely  as  the  new  villas  that  are 
springing  up,  like  excrescences,  in  the  suburbs  of  Paris, 
fate  was  kind  to  hide  all  trace  and  memory  of  them. 
All  this  makes  one  incline  to  Hugo's  belief  that  books 
have  killed  architecture,  as  they  are  cheaper  and  easier 
mediums  through  which  souls  can  express  their  pas- 


28  THE   SOUL   OF   PARIS 

sions.  But  in  times  past  the  Spirit  of  Architecture  in 
Paris  has  slumbered  through  generations  only  to 
awaken  refreshed  and  go  forward  to  the  accomplish 
ment  of  truer  and  more  beautiful  things;  and  in  time 
it  may  cast  off  the  false  forms  that  are  created  in  its 
name  and  again  build  in  truth  and  beauty.  For  a 
really  rich  mankind  needs  both  books  and  architec 
ture. 

To  make  again  the  esoteric  comparison,  one  might 
say  that  the  Spirit  of  Painting  is  drunk.  It  is  sending 
forth  myriads  of  ill-formed  things  that  can  be  the 
product  only  of  jaundiced  eyes  and  hands  unsteady 
from  debauchery.  And  like  any  drunken  thing,  it  takes 
itself  most  seriously.  It  produces  weak  things  in  dis 
cordant  colors,  paltry  things  without  beauty  of  soul, 
trivial  things  without  meaning  or  value,  and  then  it 
blames  the  age  because  its  work  is  not  hailed  as  the 
emanation  and  product  of  genius.  Painting  in  Paris 
has  become  puerile,  and  almost  imbecile.  But  this  now 
drunken  Spirit  of  Painting  was  very  sober  and  very 
sane  through  generations,  and  even  in  not  olden  times 
it  inspired  the  eyes  and  hands  of  Greuze,  and  then  of 
Millet  and  Diaz  and  Rousseau  and  Corot.  It  nodded 
and  dozed  before  Puvis  de  Chavannes  had  learned  all 
the  message  it  tried  to  speak  to  him  in  sobriety;  it 
was  able  to  deliver  its  message  almost  intact  to  Lher- 
mitte, — and  then  it  maundered  off  into  the  drunken 


THE    SOUL   OF   PARIS  29 

jargon  that  has  been  accepted  as  the  code  and  the  creed 
of  almost  all  of  those  who  came  after. 

And  so  with  all  who  sit  on  the  thrones  of  the 
artistic  section  of  this  brotherhood;  all  slumber,  or  are 
mad,  or  have  sunk  into  dotage,  or  are  drunken.  A 
very  little  good  sculpture  is  done, — more  literary,  if 
such  an  expression  may  be  used,  than  artistic;  and 
wholly  impotent  to  stand  against  the  armies  of  medi 
ocre  things  that  rise  up,  like  dragon's  teeth,  to  contend 
the  ground  with  it.  The  lustres  and  harmonies  that 
once  dwelt  there  have  escaped  from  the  tapestries  that 
are  now  woven ;  the  geometrical  lines  of  the  great  iron 
tower  have  also  invaded  the  potter's  wheel;  Boule  is 
almost  a  forgotten  name,  and  is  wholly  a  forgotten 
influence;  and  since  Hugo  and  Renan — and  with  the 
exception  of  Maeterlinck — the  Spirit  of  Letters  has 
for  the  most  of  the  time  sulked  in  its  tent.  But  such 
vagaries  and  lapses  have  occurred  before,  yet  have 
always  been  followed  by  periods  of  renewed  excel 
lence.  And  there  are  earnest  things  still  at  work  in 
Paris, — earnest  and  potent  members  of  its  Inner 
Brotherhood  who  are  still  striving  and  bringing  forth. 
The  Spirit  of  Science  sleeps  not  nor  rests.  It  works 
with  patience,  and  it  produces  progress  and  aids  evolu 
tion.  All  the  sciences  are  progressive  in  Paris,  from 
the  humanitarian  science  of  the  physicians  to  the 
sciences  that  penetrate  the  heavens  and  the  molecules. 


30  THE    SOUL   OF    PARIS 

Philosophy — also  awake  and  alert — guides  the  hand 
of  Science,  and  gives  it  counsels,  so  it  offers  to  the  world 
only  what  it  can  demonstrate  and  prove.  And  the 
spirits  of  the  more  homely  and  more  necessary  arts  of 
Government,  Commerce,  Finance,  and  Industry, — and 
it  must  still  be  added,  War, — are  alert,  keen,  progres 
sive,  and  successful. 

And  over  all  of  these  things  there  reigns  that  mys 
tic,  intangible  Soul  of  Paris,  that  soul  that  permeates 
the  great  city  and  its  people  and  its  nation,  that  soul 
which  has  expressed  itself  in  the  people's  history,  lit 
erature,  art,  science,  and  progress.  And  if  we  are  able 
to  approach  closely  to  this  soul,  and  to  discern  what 
is  the  inmost  thing  that  dominates  it  and  for  which  it 
stands,  I  believe  we  shall  find  that  thing  to  be  defined 
in  the  words  Human  Advancement, — the  betterment  of 
the  condition  of  mankind.  It  was  Paris  that  first  killed 
the  dragon  of  feudalism;  it  was  Paris  that  overturned 
the  despotic  and  cruel  throne  that  had  reared  itself 
upon  the  quivering  hearts  of  the  masses;  it  was  Paris 
that  first  dared  to  claim  for  humanity  the  rights  of 
free  thought  and  free  speech, — and  Paris  was  the 
teacher  of  Paine  and  Franklin  and  Jefferson.  It  be 
lieves  in  thought  being  free,  and  in  France — the  first  of 
the  Western  nations — it  will  not  be  long  until  men  may 
really  and  actually  search  for,  and  live  in  accordance 
with,  beliefs  that  will  truthfully  harmonize  with  the  die- 


THE    SOUL   OF    PARIS  31 

tates  of  their  own  consciences, — and  not  meet  with  os 
tracism  therefor. 

It  is  from  this  mythical  and  yet  existent  Soul  of 
Paris  that  much  of  the  progress  known  in  the  Western 
world  has  emanated.  And  as  we  study  the  mandates  it 
has  given  forth,  and  as  we  analyze  the  effects  that  have 
followed  its  teachings,  we  find  them  to  be  good,  and 
to  stand  always  for  the  betterment  of  the  condition  of 
the  human  race,  for  the  advancement  and  enlighten 
ment  of  human  society,  for  the  progress  of  human  insti 
tutions  toward  good,  and,  above  all,  for  the  evolution 
of  the  individual.  And  if  there  may  be  said  to  be  a 
text  to  the  inner  and  most  sacred  creed  of  this  Soul  of 
Paris,  if  there  may  be  said  to  be  one  right  which  above 
all  others  it  esteems  as  being  founded  upon  an  eternal 
verity,  and  which  it  considers  to  be  its  chiefest  mission 
to  promulgate  and  enforce,  I  think  that  it  would  not 
read,  "Be  content  with  the  station  and  the  class  in 
which  fate  has  placed  you,"  nor  "All  men  are  born  free 
and  equal,"  but  that  it  would  be  the  definition  of  the 
goal  of  all  true  progress  and  the  aim  of  all  true 
civilization,  and  that  it  would  read: 

"Equality  of  opportunity  shall  be  free  to  all." 

And  in  this,  its  inmost  word,  not  yet  fully  enunci 
ated,  it  is  speaking  anew  the  thought  differently  spoken 
but  with  the  same  meaning  by  Plato,  by  Napoleon,  by 


32  THE    SOUL   OF    PARIS 

the  founders  of  the  American  Republic, — and  by  phil 
osophy  and  science. 

Will  you  analyze  this  promise  that  the  future  is 
uttering  through  the  Soul  of  Paris?  I  do  not  think 
that  its  realization  would  have  the  definition  of  an 
archy,  or  of  any  form  of  socialism  now  advocated,  but 
that  it  is  the  definition  and  description  of  the  chiefest 
birthright  of  all  men.  If  it  is  ever  realized  it  will 
harmonize  with  the  law  of  the  Survival  of  the  Fittest, 
— and  it  will  not  burden  the  capable  with  the  weak. 

And  so  one  turns  from  his  contemplation  of  the 
dominating  Soul  of  this  great  World  City  with  a 
renewed  conviction  that  humanity  is  advancing,  with  a 
renewed  confidence  in  the  saneness  of  the  purpose  of 
things, — with  a  renewed  belief  that  God's  world  was 
made  for  the  world's  people  and  for  all  of  its  people. 


II 

THE    DESERT 


"The  little  affairs  of  life  blossom  swartly  in  the  cities. 
Warriors  come  down  from  the  mountains.  Where  the  rivers 
flow  vehemently  active  men  are  bred.  But  valley-men  do  not 
rise  to  heights  of  introspection,  nor  do  men  who  dwell  by  the 
chattering  waters  attain  serenity  of  thought;  only  in  the 
quiet,  monotonous  deserts — where  the  level  lines  run  league 
after  league — does  the  mind  find  its  great  equilibrium.  Mathe 
matics  and  art  were  born  in  the  desert;  religion  is  man's 
translation  of  the  desert." 


II 

THE    DESERT 

/"\  PINIONS  are  frequently  so  hastily  formed,  and 
conclusions  are  so  often  erroneous,  that  they 
need  not  be  taken  too  seriously  into  account.  One  may 
believe  that  the  earth  is  borne  upon  the  back  of  a  turtle, 
or  that  God  will  punish  his  creatures  for  performing 
the  acts  that  he  caused  them  to  perform ;  yet  these  be 
liefs  will  not  alter  the  real  truth  of  the  matter.  Truth 
is  not  lying  at  the  bottom  of  a  well,  but  is  all  about  the 
world,  on  the  sea,  in  counting  houses,  in  workshops,  and 
in  temples.  That  it  is  often  not  recognized  makes  no 
difference  with  the  fact  that  its  presence  is  universal. 
Yet  even  truth  may  seem  to  be  a  variable  thing,  in  ac 
cordance  with  conditions.  To  a  monk,  withdrawal 
from  the  world  and  the  practice  in  the  sternest  way  of 
abstinence  and  continence  may  represent  the  require 
ments  of  truth,  but  that  seeming  of  truth  to  him  does 
not  make  it  truth  to  others.  So  it  is  with  people,  and 
landscapes,  and  places.  The  fact  that  a  given  man  can 
see  no  beauty  away  from  Piccadilly  or  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne  does  not  disprove  the  beauty  of  the  Lake  of 

35 


36  THE    DESERT 

Bourget  or  the  Valley  of  Apam.  Because  deserts,  to 
most  people,  are  places  of  desolation  that  they  like  to 
shut  out  of  their  sight  if  they  can,  and  out  of  their 
memories  when  they  have  once  passed  over  them  and 
are  safely  in  the  green  valleys  or  the  fertile  flat  lands, 
it  is  none  the  less  true  that  they  are  among  the  most 
interesting  places  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  Deserts 
are  equal  to  the  sea  in  the  ideas  they  give  of  extent, 
solitude,  and  infinity,  and  equal  to  the  mountains  in 
beauty  and  weirdness.  One  of  their  chiefest  beauties 
is  that  they  are  far  from  the  throngs  and  crowds  of 
tired,  nervous,  disappointed,  and  envious  men  and 
women,  who  occupy  much  of  the  nearer  landscape  in 
inhabited  places. 

In  the  uninhabited  desert  there  are  no  men  bending 
under  weights  of  underpaid  labor,  no  women  eating  out 
their  hearts  because  of  unsatisfied  cravings  and  ambi 
tions;  there  are  no  richer  and  no  poorer  ones  there; 
no  vexing  questions  of  schism  and  sect,  of  ruled  and 
rulers,  of  capital  and  labor,  of  natural  desires  and  arti 
ficial  morals.  But  there  is  a  brooding  peace,  as  deep  as 
the  fountains  of  life  in  the  bosom  of  old  mother  earth ; 
there  is  silent  communion  with  the  powers  and  laws  of 
nature,  with  the  Power  or  Force  or  God  that  some 
where  back  of  its  visible  and  invisible  mysteries  looks 
so  carefully  after  the  things  that  exist  that  even  the 
sparrows  are  accounted  for;  and  there  is  a  content  that 


THE    DESERT  37 

is  beyond  money  and  power  and  position  and  the  acci 
dents  of  birth,  station,  and  environment.  Like  old 
Omar's 

"Strip  of  herbage  strown," 

the  deserts  surely  are  the  places 

"Where  name  of  slave  and  sultan  is  forgot," — 

and  well  forgot.  They  are  the  places  where  Truth 
wears  no  disguises,  and  whose  face  may  be  studied  even 
by  a  fool. 

The  deserts,  too,  have  physical  beauty.  This  varies 
with  each  one  as  much  as  do  the  individual  beauties  and 
peculiar  attractions  of  different  ranges  of  mountains. 
With  some  there  are  the  shifting  seas  of  gray  sands, 
ever  moving,  ever  rearing  themselves  into  hills  and 
dunes  that  are  blown  down  again  by  the  next  wind — 
blown  down  and  dispersed  and  scattered  as  men  have 
ever  been  dispersed  and  scattered,  no  matter  how 
strongly  they  allied  themselves  into  tribes  and  com 
munities  and  nations.  Nor  are  the  dunes  much  sooner 
forgotten  than  are  the  men  and  the  races,  if  the  meas 
urement  is  computed  by  geological  time.  In  such  hot, 
gray  deserts  there  is  a  strange  weirdness,  almost  beauty, 
in  the  metallic  sky,  in  the  occasional  sagebush  or  cactus, 
in  the  great  ball  of  molten  fire  that  is  the  sun.  But  the 
chiefest  charm  in  such  deserts,  as  with  all,  is  in  the  fact 


38  THE    DESERT 

that  here  one  can  be  alone,  with  himself  and  with  na 
ture,  and  away  from  all  the  mistakes  and  cares  that 
burden  life  in  the  inhabited  places.  When  the  Jugger 
naut  car  of  Civilization  presses  unduly  and  unusually 
hard,  when  things  are  most  out  of  joint,  when  the  dis 
ease  of  progress  is  at  such  an  acute  and  critical  stage 
that  a  powerful  counterirritant  is  needed,  then  the 
beauties  of  the  hottest  and  most  barren  desert  are  un 
folded,  and  are  appreciated  as  is  strong  drink  after 
exposure  to  severe  cold.  But  for  lasting  beauty  and 
permanent  enjoyment,  the  deserts  where  some  vegeta 
tion  grows,  where  a  dry  stream-bed  winds  its  way 
across  the  landscape,  where  prairie  dogs  and  locusts 
abound  and  ant-hills  mark  the  course  of  vision,  are  the 
most  desired.  In  some  such  deserts  there  are  a  few 
winding,  irresolute  little  rivers  that  seem  to  have  been 
frightened  by  tales  of  the  uproar  and  fury  of  the  sea, 
and  to  have  turned  inland  to  places  where  they  can  drop 
out  of  sight  and  bury  themselves  in  the  sands  in  peace. 
I  know  such  a  desert,  where  cottonwood  trees  grow 
along  the  courses  of  the  odd  little  rivers,  inviting  the 
dusty  traveler  to  lie  under  their  welcome  shade  and 
prove  the  wisdom  of  the  nations  that  number  the  siesta 
among  their  national  institutions.  And  if  there  is  a 
gray,  hazy  mist  in  the  sky  or  in  part  of  it,  and  given 
that  the  sun  is  willing,  there  are  spread  before  one  the 
marvelous  mirages  of  the  Southland.  In  such  a  place 


THE    DESERT  39 

I  once  saw  a  mirage  of  an  island  in  a  quiet  sea.  The 
beach  descended  in  an  easy  slope  to  the  water  line,  ir 
regular  rows  of  palm  trees  grew  along  the  shore,  and 
an  infinite  silence  and  peace  hovered  like  a  benison  over 
the  place.  I  do  not  know  where  the  reality  of  the 
image  is  located,  but  some  place  on  the  face  of  this  one 
of  God's  worlds  that  island  of  beauty  exists,  perhaps 
in  undiscovered  pristinity,  and  is  another  of  the  visible 
manifestations  of  the  absolute  beauty,  and  consequently 
of  the  absolute  good,  of  nature.  A  few  of  us  saw  this 
transferred  picture  when  we  were  in  a  barren  desert  of 
the  great  Bolson  of  Mapimi,  and  its  only  settings  were 
the  sky,  the  sun,  and  the  broad,  silent  stretches  of  sand. 
I  think  no  one  of  that  little  party  had  ever  seen  any 
thing  more  beautiful  among  all  the  lands  and  cities  he 
knew ;  and  I  think  no  one  of  them  will  ever  be  told  so 
much  of  the  real  grace  and  goodness  of  nature  or  of 
God  as  was  there  disclosed  as  a  picture  in  the  silence  of 
the  desert. 

The  deserts  have  voices,  and  we  can  hear  and  un 
derstand  them  if  the  ears  of  our  souls  are  open  and 
attuned  to  the  languages  they  speak.  They  do  not 
speak  loudly,  and  with  insistence,  but  very  gently,  and 
with  great  modesty;  and  they  speak  with  the  sublime 
indifference  that  is  one  of  the  chief  appurtenances  of  all 
truth.  We  may  listen  or  close  our  ears,  we  may  under 
stand  or  not,  we  may  heed  or  go  unheeding,  it  is  all 


40  THE    DESERT 

matter  of  the  most  complete  indifference  to  the  desert. 
It  is  with  the  voice  of  nature  that  the  desert  speaks, 
with  the  truth  of  nature,  with  the  persistence  of  nature ; 
but  if  we  heed  not  its  voice,  or  are  indifferent  to  its 
message,  the  great  soul  of  the  desert  stops  not  to  argue 
nor  to  grieve,  for  it  knows  that  to-morrow  we  shall  be 
dead  and  at  one  with  nature  anyhow.  Whether  we 
hear  or  are  deaf,  God's  will  will  be  done;  nations  will 
rise  and  fall,  mountains  will  emerge  from  the  sea,  and 
the  sea  will  submerge  mountains ;  fables  of  Jehennum 
and  the  devil  will  be  hurled  broadcast  to  frighten  men 
during  their  few  days,  and  men  will  in  time  return  to 
the  dust  from  which  they  are  made,  and  the  future  will 
remain  in  the  hands  of  God,  who  perhaps  has  not  told 
even  to  the  spirits  of  the  desert  the  secret  of  the  pur 
pose  of  things.  The  inevitable  and  infallible  evolution 
of  things  will  go  on,  the  processes  of  the  suns  will  work 
out  the  destinies  that  were  set  to  them,  and  why  should 
the  soul  of  the  desert  trouble  itself  because  weak  mor 
tals  cannot  understand  its  language,  and  that  they  pre 
fer  to  keep  their  eyes  to  the  ground  and  suffer  deafness 
of  their  own  choosing,  rather  than  strive  to  see  the 
beauties  of  which  it  speaks,  and  understand  the  mes 
sages  it  is  willing  to  say  into  their  unwilling  ears? 

I  know  a  desert  that  is  full  of  voices,  that  is  full  of 
messages,  written  in  stone,  that  men  can  but  dimly  un 
derstand,  that  is  full  of  sermons  of  a  rarer  and  better 


THE    DESERT  41 

kind  than  men  have  ever  spoken.  This  desert  is  on  a 
high  plateau,  a  thousand  feet  above  the  desertlike  val 
ley  of  a  lonely  river  that  winds  its  way  along  nature's 
course  to  the  sea,  unmindful  of  what  bands  of  tem 
porary  peoples  may  from  time  to  time  inhabit  and 
encumber  its  banks.  This  desert  was  once  inhabited, 
and  through  its  crumbling  ruins  it  tells  of  nations  that 
were  born  into  the  world,  perhaps  before  the  word  his 
tory  had  a  definition,  and  who  faded  from  life  perhaps 
before  the  Druids  began  sacrificing  blood  in  the  groves 
of  Britain,  and  who  were  followed  by  other  nations  in 
a  younger  time  that  is  now  so  old  as  to  be  almost  be 
yond  comprehension.  These  old  cliff  ruins,  slowly 
wearing  away  by  the  gentle  action  of  the  soft  winds 
that  blow  down  from  the  mountains,  speak  eloquently 
of  the  inevitable  destiny  of  men  and  the  races  of  men. 
We  may  find,  if  we  seek  the  knowledge,  that  distant 
descendants  of  the  ancient  nations  who  once  dwelt  and 
toiled  and  loved  and  worshiped  and  died  in  what  is 
now  this  gray  desert,  live  petty  lives  in  mud  villages  in 
remote  places;  but  the  time  has  been  so  long,  and  food 
has  had  to  be  sought  so  persistently,  that  they  know  of 
the  old  tribes  of  their  ancestors  only  by  dim  traditions 
and  the  scraps  of  history  handed  down  and  woven  into 
the  fantastic  superstitions  of  their  priests.  The  soul 
of  this  desert,  speaking  from  among  the  crumbling 
ruins  that  dot  it  as  ant  hills  dot  a  sandy  valley,  seems  to 


42  THE    DESERT 

say,  "In  the  end  all  the  works  of  men  lead  but  to 
oblivion  and  decay.  Individuals,  communities,  tribes, 
and  nations  may  fret  the  face  of  the  earth  for  a  little 
time  with  their  presence,  with  their  toilings,  and  their 
wranglings  over  things  that  they  know  not  of,  but  in 
the  end  it  will  be  in  all  places  as  it  is  here.  The  peo 
ples  will  be  gone,  and  those  who  come  after  them  will 
know  not  where.  Memories  of  them  will  not  abide 
with  their  successors,  and  they  will  be  forgotten  utterly 
in  all  places  in  the  world.  But  the  effects  of  what 
they  have  done  will  not  be  lost,  for  nothing  is  lost  in 
nature." 

The  realizing  sense  that  we  get  in  this  desert  of  our 
own  smallness  and  futileness  is  better  than  much  of  the 
education  that  is  dinned  into  the  ears  of  students  by 
dogmatic  pedants.  And,  when  we  come  to  think 
upon  the  truths  that  the  desert  teaches,  we  find 
them  pleasant.  We  are  yet  at  the  beginning  of  things, 
although  we  may  be  the  descendants  and  ascendants  of 
every  form  of  vegetable  and  animal  life  that  has  ever 
been  upon  the  earth  or  in  its  waters.  For  us,  with  our 
little  brains  that  are  so  easily  turned,  it  is  perhaps 
better  that  we  are  incapable  of  understanding  the  skies 
and  the  stars,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  things,  and 
the  great  facts  about  God  and  his  myriads  of  worlds. 
Else  might  the  knowledge  craze  us ;  and  as  it  would  be 
impossible  for  our  wisdom  to  keep  pace,  even  if 


THE    DESERT  43 

we  could  comprehend  the  knowledge,  our  happiness  is 
better  conserved,  and  our  progress  better  assured,  that 
things  are  as  they  are. 

In  the  desert  the  condition  of  the  surroundings 
makes  it  plain  to  us,  as  the  forests  made  the  same  truths 
plain  to  Thoreau,  that  we  are  insignificant  and  igno 
rant;  that  we  do  not  know  the  letter  "A"  and  cannot 
count  one.  But  a  great  fact,  temporarily  at  least,  is 
made  known  to  our  intuitive  senses,  a  fact  that  all  the 
science  and  theology  of  all  the  races  of  men  have  not 
yet  been  able  to  conclusively  and  absolutely  prove, 
namely,  that  with  us,  and  as  part  of  us,  are  souls,  mys 
terious  parts  of  the  fabrics  of  our  being  that  we  do  not 
comprehend,  and  that  are  immortal  if  it  is  wisest  and 
best  for  them  to  be  so.  The  desert  takes  away  from 
her  true  lovers  the  fear  of  death  and  the  mysteries  of 
the  unknown  and  unknowable  future.  She  teaches  that 
it  is  wisest  and  best  that  she  herself  exists,  that  the 
mountains  exist,  that  humanity  exists,  that  the  universe 
exists,  that  water  seeks  always  its  level,  that  the  clouds 
pass  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  that  all  that  is  is  right, 
and  that  it  must  also  be  true  that  it  is  best  for  all  life 
that  exists  in  flesh  to  have  an  end.  The  silent  voices  of 
the  desert  say  that  in  all  nature  there  are  no  mistakes; 
that,  therefore,  it  is  impossible  for  mankind  to  be  a  mis 
take,  and  that  if  immortality  is  best,  then  it  will  surely 
be. 


44  THE    DESERT 

There  are  poisonous  things  in  the  deserts,  plants 
whose  juices  are  death-dealing,  and  creatures  that  are 
venomous,  but  they  have  their  places  and  their  uses  in 
the  great  system  of  things ;  and  this  is  none  the  less  true 
because  we,  who  do  not  know  even  our  own  uses  and 
purposes,  fail  to  know  theirs.  It  must  also  be  inevitably 
true  that  their  uses  and  purposes  are  for  ultimate  and 
absolute  good,  as  are  all  things  else  in  the  world. 

I  know  a  desertlike  place  that  is  not  wholly  a  desert, 
yet  it  is  neither  oasis  nor  fertile  land.  It  is  what  might 
be  termed  a  semi-desert,  and  it  has  a  mood  that  is  differ 
ent  from  that  of  other  deserts.  It  seems  a  philosophic, 
well-contented  sort  of  place,  that  has  much  knowl 
edge,  much  wisdom,  and  that  extracts  a  wise  enjoyment 
from  the  days  that  pass  over  it.  It  is  nearly  related  to 
a  tall  peak,  and  is  akin  to  a  near-by  range  of  mountains, 
and  to  the  air  and  the  sky.  Flowers  grow  upon  this 
semi-desert, — sunflowers,  and  bergamot,  and  bluebells, 
and  Mariposa  lilies,  and  many  other  shaggy  little  stems 
that  bear  blue  and  yellow  and  white  and  seven-hued 
blossoms.  It  knows  sagebrush,  too,  and  yucca,  and 
various  pygmy  cacti.  It  is  field  and  farm  and  native 
land  for  many  well-established,  ancient,  and  wise  na 
tions  of  prairie  dogs,  and  it  is  the  world  and  the  fullness 
thereof  for  thousands  of  republics  of  ants.  This  semi- 
desert  stretches  away  from  the  mountains  and  runs  un 
dulating  in  billows  toward  the  east.  We  know  it 


THE    DESERT  45 

reaches  to  farms  and  towns  and  work  and  trouble,  and 
that  its  next  of  kin,  the  prairie,  goes  on  to  the  great 
rivers  whose  banks  are  lined  with  the  coveters  of  chat 
tels,  but  we  like  to  think  that,  as  a  desert,  it  stretches 
away  beyond  the  horizon,  and  passes  unchanged  on  to 
infinity,  and  that  across  it  is  the  road  to  eternity,  and 
endless  growth  of  soul,  and  ceaseless  joy  of  effort  and 
consummation. 

A  little  town  has  been  built  upon  the  edge  of  this 
desert.  The  town  is  the  best  one  I  know,  and  is  infin 
itely  superior  to  London  or  Paris  or  New  York,  in  that 
it  is  infinitely  smaller,  and  therefore  cannot  hold  so 
much  poverty  and  vice  and  false  pride  and  malice  and 
envy;  but  yet  it  seems  a  sort  of  desecration  for  it  to  sit 
in  all  its  upstart  garishness  upon  the  edge  of  this  ancient 
and  perfect  semi-desert.  It  seems  an  impertinence, 
something  as  a  beetle  would  if  it  sat  upon  a  masterpiece 
of  the  painter's  art.  The  desert  crowds  upon  the  town 
somewhat,  by  way  of  discipline,  and  it  sometimes  seems 
mildly  to  threaten  that  It  will  press  forward  and  sweep 
the  houses  and  gardens  before  it.  But  I  think  it  is  not 
much  annoyed  by  the  town,  or  that  it  gives  much 
thought  to  it,  for  other  towns,  in  other  and  forgotten 
times,  may  have  settled  upon  its  borders,  and  they  are 
gone,  and  the  desert  knows  by  that  past  experience,  as 
well  as  by  its  natural  wisdom,  that  this  town,  too,  will 
go  in  time,  and  that  it  will  be  left  again  to  undisturbed 


46  THE    DESERT 

communion  with  the  stars  that  are  its  angels,  and  the 
mountains  that  are  its  sisters,  and  with  the  sun  that  is 
lover  of  both  it  and  the  mountains.  And  then,  too,  if 
the  town  has  the  same  good  right  to  exist  that  the  des 
ert  has,  the  desert  knows  that  much  better  than  does  the 
town.  The  mountains  that  look  down  upon  this  semi- 
desert  wrap  themselves  in  mantles  of  filmy  mist  at 
night,  and  they  and  the  desert  sleep  the  peaceful  sleep 
of  nature,  secure  in  the  absolute  knowledge  that  the  sun 
will  come  again  as  soon  as  it  is  best  for  him  to  come. 
Then  in  the  morning  the  mists  unwrap  themselves  in 
winding  veils  of  beauty  and  melt  away;  the  sun  kisses 
the  desert  and  thrills  the  mountains  to  their  hearts  with 
messages  of  infinity  and  eternity.  And  perhaps  the  des 
ert  and  the  mountains  say  to  one  another  that  the  little 
town  is  not  a  desecration,  but  is  also  good,  and  that 
even  its  poorest  and  meanest  inhabitant  is  as  great  and 
as  valuable  in  the  estimation  of  God  as  is  the  sun  him 
self. 

The  most  beautiful,  the  most  mysterious,  the  most 
inscrutable  of  all  the  deserts  I  know  is  one  that  lies  to 
the  north  of  the  city  of  Zacatecas.  It  is  much  loved  by 
the  sun,  but  it  loves  the  shadow  better.  The  sun  gath 
ers  pictures  over  the  world  for  it  and  casts  them  as 
mirages  upon  it  for  it  to  see,  much  as  any  other  foolish 
lover  casts  pieces  of  stone  and  bits  of  metal  at  the  feet 
of  his  sweetheart.  But  this  desert  loves  the  sun  better 


THE    DESERT  47 

because  of  his  disappearance;  and  when  he  sinks  be 
hind  the  Sierra  Madres,  which  are  the  true  lovers  and 
beloved  of  this  desert,  she  puts  on  her  loveliest  appear 
ance,  and  takes  unto  herself  a  beauty  that  is  beyond 
description.  The  hills  outvie  her  in  effort  and  in 
beauty,  and  if  in  all  the  world  there  is  a  more  lovely  or 
more  beautiful  place  than  is  this  at  sunset,  then  have 
travelers  missed  the  purpose  of  their  wanderings,  for 
they  have  not  told  of  such  a  place.  The  sun  casts 
golden  messages  back  as  he  sinks  over  the  side  of  the 
world, — shafts  of  light  that  strike  the  sides  of  the  ever 
lasting  hills  and  refract  from  them  in  prisms  of  greater 
beauty  than  ever  artist  fastened  to  canvas.  The  moun 
tains  translate  these  golden  messages  into  shadows,  and 
send  them  stealing  over  the  bosom  of  the  desert.  The 
everlasting  hills  change  their  color  from  the  dull  brown 
of  day  into  an  ultramarine,  and  the  golden  aureole  on 
their  summits  makes  them  seem  to  be  truly  clothed  in 
royal  purple  and  golden  crowns,  but  better  than  human 
imitations,  for  theirs  are  purple  of  royal  nature  and 
crowns  of  nature's  beauty.  The  subtropical  atmos 
phere  that  has  been  surcharged  with  heat  throughout 
the  day  quivers  in  vibrations  that  seem  to  extend  to  the 
ends  of  space,  and  the  mountains  appear  to  quiver,  and 
even  to  move  forward  in  perfect  motion  and  in  dancing 
light,  in  sympathy  with  the  kind  and  perfect  farewell  of 
the  sun.  These  everlasting  mountains  seem  to  call  out 


48  THE    DESERT 

a  message  to  the  desert,  and  to  the  humans  and  beetles 
and  ants,  too,  if  they  can  understand,  and  say, — 

"We  are  the  everlasting  hills.  We  are  the  beloved 
of  the  sun,  who  thrills  us  to  our  hearts  each  day,  and 
tells  us  of  the  infinity  and  immutability  and  all-wisdom 
of  our  Creator.  We  stand  as  emblems  of  eternity  and 
steadfastness  and  truth  and  right-being.  We  are  mo 
tionless,  but  we  are  content,  for  we  know  that  in  God's 
good  time  we  will  be  changed.  But  we  are  immortal, 
and  indestructible,  and  created  of  God,  and  nothing  can 
be  other  than  well  with  us.  And  the  sun  loves  us,  and 
love  is  the  warmth  and  the  light  of  existence,  and  we 
are  content,  and  more  than  content." 

And  as  the  golden  crowns  fade  from  the  summits  of 
the  mystic  mountains,  and  the  shadows  stretch  in  longer 
lines  of  beauty  over  the  face  of  the  perfect  earth,  the 
desert  gives  voice,  and  answers, — 

"I  am  the  desert,  the  eternal  desert,  also  beloved  of 
the  sun.  I  have  been  since  the  beginning  of  this  one  of 
God's  worlds,  and  I  shall  be  until  the  end  of  the  world 
shall  come.  The  sun  that  kisses  me,  and  impregnates 
me  with  warmth  and  heat,  has  taught  me  that  in  some 
form  and  in  some  place  I  shall  always  be,  and  so  I  am 
content,  and  all  is  well  with  me.  I  stand  for  quiet  and 
for  peace,  and  I  am  the  visible  emblem  of  quietness 
and  of  peace  in  the  world.  My  limits,  that  lie  beyond 
the  scope  of  vision,  are  to  teach  men  of  the  boundless 


THE    DESERT  49 

extent  of  right  and  truth;  my  peace  is  to  teach  them 
that  all  is  good,  and  that  to  all  will  come  peace.  I  that 
am  finite  stand  as  a  visible  emblem  of  infinity.  I  that 
am  mortal  am  an  irrefutable  proof  of  immortality. 
And,  because  I  am  great  and  silent  and  mysterious,  I 
speak  unerringly  to  the  depth  and  greatness  and  silence 
and  mystery  of  the  souls  of  humans,  that,  like  me, 
were  made  by  nature  and  by  nature's  God." 

The  desert  sometimes  has  a  sterner  message.  If 
one  appears  before  her  in  pride  and  arrogance,  she  will 
say, — 

"Oh,  poverty-stricken  human;  you  are  among  the 
least  of  all  things  in  the  sight  of  God,  for  he  has  given 
you  less  than  the  gifts  that  are  to  his  other  creatures. 
Your  days  are  less  than  the  days  of  the  stone,  your  joys 
are  less  than  the  joys  of  the  lark,  your  understanding 
is  less  than  my  own,  and  all  that  was  vouchsafed  you 
was  an  uncertain  few  of  nights  and  days.  Yet  have  you 
manacled  these  few  nights  with  terror,  and  hindered 
your  days  with  loads  of  folly  and  vain  desire.  Seek 
not  so  much  after  riches,  for  your  flesh  melts,  and  soon 
you  sink  back  into  the  elements  of  nature.  Embitter 
not  your  souls  with  envy,  for  you  and  those  whom  your 
envy  causes  you  to  hate  are  but  as  the  beetles  and  the 
grass  and  the  leaves, — inheritors  only  of  inevitable 
death.  Be  not  selfish,  for  your  weak  self  is  but  as  a 
mote  in  a  ray  of  light.  God  will  not  stop  the  blowing 


50  THE    DESERT 

of  one  of  the  least  of  his  winds  in  order  that  you  may 
triumph  over  your  neighbor,  or  that  your  selfish  vanity 
may  be  gratified.  And  all  the  largesse  you  pay  to  self- 
appointed  agents  of  the  Immutable  Right  will  not  add 
a  single  day  to  your  days,  nor  will  it  relieve  you  from 
paying  a  full  right  for  the  least  of  your  wrongs." 

But  the  desert  has  the  same  spirit  as  its  mother 
earth,  who  speaks  messages  of  hope  and  peace  to  all 
her  creatures.  And  when  we  seek  wisdom  from  the 
desert,  and  listen  to  it  in  reverence,  it  says, — 

"Come  to  me,  for  I  am  solitude,  and  in  solitude  is 
wisdom.  Come  to  me,  for  I  am  silence,  and  in  silence 
is  communion  with  God.  Come  to  me,  for  I  am  beauty, 
and  beauty  is  a  thing  beyond  the  creation  of  Caesar  or 
of  Midas.  But  come  not  to  me  at  all  unless  you  come 
in  humility  and  right  thinking,  for  in  exacting  those 
things  I  am  as  one  with  God,  and  with  me  a  king  is  no 
greater  than  a  beggar.  But  if  you  will  know  me,  and 
study  me,  and  love  me,  I  will  give  you  peace,  and  a 
great  content,  and  a  knowledge  that  is  beyond  what  you 
may  gain  from  men,  or  from  events,  or  from  books." 


THE  DESERT  HAS  THE  SAME  SPIRIT  AS  ITS  MOTHER  EARTH, 
WHO  SPEAKS  MESSAGES  OF  HOPE  AND  PEACE 


Ill 

A   ROSARY   OF   CITIES 


There  are  no  beautiful  cities ;  it  is  only  that  some  are  less 
hideous  than  others.  For  mankind,  with  all  its  wondrous  wit, 
has  not  yet  been  able, — and  it  has  not  tried  very  hard, — to  de 
vise  a  city  where  for  every  palace  there  are  not  a  hundred 
hovels,  where  for  every  being  living  a  full  life  there  are  not  a 
hundred  bending  under  the  weights  of  penury  and  toil.  But, 
as  art  goes,  cities  are  among  the  best  things  yet  created  by  the 
wan,  colorless  arts  of  men. 


Ill 

A    ROSARY   OF   CITIES 

TTT'E  all  know  too  well  the  selfish,  pompous  and  arro 
gant  cities  that  so  many  people  are  so  mistaken 
as  to  think  make  up  the  chiefest  glories  of  the  world. 
But  I  like  to  forget  all  of  them  but  Paris — and  often 
also  to  forget  Paris, — and  to  make  for  myself  a 
rosary  of  smaller  and  fairer  and  dearer  cities  than 
those  which  are  marked  by  the  great  beads  upon 
humanity's  strand  of  opinion.  And  so  I  write,  not 
of  the  great  cities  where  princely  riches  and  abject  mis 
ery  dwell  together,  but  of  lesser  ones  whose  individual 
ity  is  easier  to  understand,  whose  characters  and  whose 
souls  are  more  akin  to  those  of  human  beings.  As  cul 
ture  finds  its  first  expression  in  utilitarianism,  then  in 
art,  and  then,  discarding  both, — which  are  artificial 
and  incomplete, — goes  on  to  an  appreciation  of  nature, 
so  I  believe  that  to  know  first  great  cities  and  then 
lesser  ones  is  knowledge  that  leads  on  to  an  apprecia 
tion  of  those  places  so  infinitely  greater  and  more  beau 
tiful  and  more  uplifting  than  any  city  has  ever  been, 
— as  the  green  fields  of  the  country,  the  wild  woods, 

•53 


54  A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES 

the  seas,  the  silent,  majestic  mountains,  and  the  sub 
lime  stretches  of  the  wide,  soundless  deserts. 

Cities,  like  individual  entities,  have  both  bodies  and 
souls.  There  are  some  whose  souls  are  wholly  unlovely 
that  possess  as  fair  bodies  as  do  any  of  the  things  upon 
the  earth  that  were  made  by  the  hands  of  men.  Of 
such  are  many  of  the  Oriental  cities.  If  one  stands 
upon  a  height  and  looks  down  upon  the  roofs  and 
domes  and  towers  and  minarets  of  old  Tunis,  he  gazes 
upon  one  of  the  most  beautiful  pictures  in  all  the 
world's  rich  gallery.  Resting  in  the  soft  embraces  of 
the  smiling  waters  that  enfold  it,  guarded  by  the  moun 
tains  that  fondly  look  down  upon  it,  the  great  white 
city, — so  ancient  that  the  date  of  its  foundation  was 
forgotten  before  men  began  to  write  down  the  imper 
fect  records  which  they  dignify  with  the  name  of  his 
tory, — spreads  before  him  like  a  panorama,  like  a  great 
map  in  relief.  And  what  thoughts  come  of  the  men  and 
women,  the  toilers  and  players,  the  winners  and  losers, 
the  generations  and  races  and  nations  that  have  come 
and  gone,  that  have  risen  and  fallen,  in  this  venerable 
old  mother  of  cities!  Primitive  barbarians, — of  the 
same  blood  as  the  tribes  of  the  Chawia,  who  still  lead 
their  wild  lives  in  the  Aures  Mountains  on  the  borders 
of  the  Great  Desert, — once  dwelt  in  Tunis.  Then  the 
Phoenicians,  so  long  ago  that  the  tales  of  Dido  and 
./Eneas  are  but  folk-lore  and  myths.  Then  the  Ro- 


A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES  55 

mans, — for  great  Hannibal  was  beaten, — the  Byzan 
tines,  the  Arabs,  the  Turks,  the  French, — race  after 
race,  ruler  after  ruler,  system  after  system, — and  count 
less  millions  of  groping,  struggling  humans  vainly  seek 
ing  through  their  spans  of  life  for  something  that  per 
haps,  if  they  could  but  have  known  it,  nature  had  boun 
tifully  placed  ready  to  their  hands!  Temples  have 
been  reared  only  to  be  pulled  down  to  make  way  for 
newer  temples  that  also  passed  in  their  turn.  Creeds 
have  risen  from  the  ashes  of  older  creeds,  systems 
called  true  and  eternal  have  faded  before  newer  sys 
tems, — and  that  white  ghost  of  a  city  over  there,  gazing 
with  unseeing  eyes  down  into  the  living  sea,  is  the  ghost 
of  great  Carthage,  that  once  was  mighty  and  now  is 
dead.  Yet  eternal  Tunis,  that  was  old  before  Carthage 
was  born,  drowses  on  in  its  seat  of  beauty.  Surrounded 
by  its  blue  waters  and  its  everlasting  hills, — steeped  in 
indolence,  sunken  in  sensuality,  blinded  by  supersti 
tion, — barbarous,  beautiful  Tunis  is  the  one  thing 
created  by  man  that  has  persisted  during  all  the  chaos 
of  the  death  of  races  and  systems  and  creeds  of  which 
it  has  been  the  witness  and  the  theater.  Yet  perhaps 
those  things,  after  all,  did  not  pass  in  chaos.  Evolu 
tion  can  be  but  little  hastened  or  hindered,  and  it  is 
probable  that  those  things, — marking  forward  steps  of 
evolution, — persisted  until  their  usefulness  was  finished, 
until  the  world  and  humanity  needed  them  no  more, 


56  A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES 

and  then  passed, — orderly,  and  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  that  underlie  progression.  But  they  have  not  left 
much  in  Tunis;  as  is  also  true  of  Egypt,  the  wisdom 
and  the  good  that  were  born  there  have  long  since 
taken  flight  to  newer  lands  in  other  climes,  and  Tunis 
has  retained  from  the  centuries  only  its  beauty  and  its 
iniquity.  But  if  we  should  be  able  to  look  deep  into 
the  souls  of  men  we  should  often  find,  under  fair  and 
pleasing  exteriors,  that  which  would  inspire  our  con 
tempt,  and  cause  us  to  forget  the  good  which  makes  up 
so  much  of  the  character  of  all.  So  let  us  be  content 
with  seeing  only  that  which  is  good;  and  let  us  not  be 
harder  in  dealing  with  cities,  and  so  let  us  forget  the 
bigotry  and  evil  of  this  old  monument  of  humanity's 
progress, — and  let  us  admire  Tunis  for  the  marvellous 
beauty  that  is  its  heritage.  For  the  evil,  in  the  long 
plans  of  nature,  will  pass,  but  the  beauty  will  endure 
forever. 

There  is  another  city,  not  so  fair  of  form,  but  better 
in  its  soul  than  Tunis,  that  is  another  great  document 
filled  with  the  records  of  the  passing  of  time  and  the 
groping  progress  of  our  race.  Florence  is  full  of  in 
terest  for  all,  and  profound  must  be  the  student  of  cities 
who  can  extract  from  it  even  an  infinitesimal  part  of  the 
great  stores  of  wisdom  it  has  garnered  from  the  van 
ished  ages  and  generations.  With  "Florence  the  interest 
it  holds  is  not  of  things  of  the  present,  but  of  the  glori- 


A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES  57 

ous  past  the  city  has  known.  Florence  is  old,  and  lives 
in  retrospect  and  reminiscence.  The  mind  of  the  vis 
itor  turns,  not  to  the  spirit  of  the  Florence  of  to-day, 
but  to  the  spirits  of  older  Florences, — to  epochs  when 
the  city  counted  among  its  sons  Dante,  and  Boccaccio, 
and  Cellini,  and  was  the  workshop  at  times  of  Botticelli 
and  Raphael  and  Michelangelo.  What  wonderful 
proofs  of  the  potency  of  beauty  were  given  by  those 
old  Florentines !  And  how  they  proved  that  to  touch 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  human  beings  with  literature 
and  art  is  to  accomplish  things  beyond  the  power  of 
kings  and  warriors!  And  how  utterly  they  failed  in 
their  attempt  to  rival  the  marvellousness  and  wonder 
and  beauty  of  even  the  least  of  the  things  that  nature 
has  strewn  with  such  a  prodigal  hand  over  all  the  lands 
and  waters  of  the  earth !  But  they  carried  culture  gen 
erations  in  advance  of  mere  sordid  utilitarianism,  and 
while  they  lived  and  worked,  Florence  lived,  and  was 
a  waking,  moving  factor  in  the  progress  of  mankind. 
Now  Florence  sleeps,  and  perhaps  will  never  awaken 
again.  No  literature  is  born  in  Florence  now,  for  the 
decadent,  soulless  collections  of  words  that  are  now 
strung  together, — even  though  moulded  in  a  kind  of 
beauty  of  form, — make  the  world  and  life  no  better, 
and  would  be  better  left  unwritten.  No  great  pictures 
are  painted  there,  and  those  who  call  themselves  paint 
ers  fabricate  inharmonious  creations  as  destitute  of 


58  A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES 

real  beauty  as  are  the  most  of  the  works  of  the  great 
hordes  of  painters  in  France  who  proffer  to  the  world 
the  useless,  soulless  things  which  they  vainly  try  to 
make  pass  for  Art,  and  which  are  doomed  only  to  ever 
swifter  and  swifter  oblivion.  No  more  great  sculp 
tures  are  carved  in  Florence  from  the  white  rocks  that 
come  down  as  of  yore  from  Carrara, — and  the  spirit 
of  the  city  is  as  much  in  the  past  as  is  that  ancient  and 
weary  spirit  that  broods  over  its  old  monastery  of  Cer- 
tosa. 

Cities  are  like  people,  so  much  so  indeed  that  often 
they  remind  us  of  individuals  or  types  that  we  have 
known;  and  Florence  is  like  an  old  French  chatelaine, 
who  has  outlived  the  rule  and  the  hopes  of  the  Royal 
ists,  who  has  lost  her  husband  and  her  sons  and  her 
joys  in  the  lost  wars,  whose  lands  and  possessions  have 
dwindled  until  all  that  is  left  is  the  beautiful  chateau 
of  an  older  and  better  architecture  and  its  priceless  con 
tents  of  marvellous  treasures  of  art,  which  she  has 
managed,  through  all  her  vicissitudes,  to  retain.  And, 
like  such  a  chatelaine,  the  city  lives  in  the  recitations  of 
the  better  times  of  her  fortunes,  of  the  glorious, — and 
dead, — past  ages  when  she  was  great  in  all  the  ways 
that  cities  have  ever  known.  One  looks  over  Florence, 
resting  in  its  fair  Arno  valley  as  an  ancient  and  beauti 
ful  jewel  might  rest  in  its  casket;  but  he  feels  as  though 
he  were  gazing  upon  the  picture  of  an  epoch  that  is 


A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES  59 

eternally  past,  or  reading  in  sweetest  verse  the  tale  of 
a  time  that  will  be  no  more. 

There  are  three  cities  that  seem  to  be  but  wraiths 
of  their  former  selves,  wraiths  of  what  the  cities  were 
in  the  older  times  when  they  were  instinct  with  youth 
and  life.  They  are  Venice,  and  Granada,  and  Toledo. 
Sometimes  the  spirit  of  the  dead  Venice  seems  to  re 
turn,  to  again  gild  her  ancient  and  crumbling  halls  with 
something  of  the  glory  she  knew  in  life,  to  rest  again 
amidst  the  priceless  and  matchless  works  of  human 
hearts  and  brains  and  hands  which  she  left  as  a  heri 
tage  to  mankind.  But  it  is  only  an  illusion,  and  it  is  but 
the  wraith  of  a  spirit, — the  ghost  of  a  ghost, — that 
returns.  And  as  it  is  with  Venice  so  is  it  with  Toledo 
and  Granada.  The  race  that  builded  them  in  beauty 
and  endowed  them  with  splendor  is  gone  from  their 
sites, — is  indeed  almost  gone  from  the  world,  for  the 
decadent  Moors  are  not  of  the  same  clay  as  were  their 
great  forefathers  who  builded  the  Alhambra  and  the 
Toledo  gates,  who  progressed  in  astronomy  and  med 
icine,  and  cultivated  the  sciences  and  encouraged  the 
arts,  and  who  wrought  those  great  poems  in  stone  that 
stand  as  their  monuments  in  the  fair  lands  that  they 
lost.  Toledo  is  even  more  than  a  souvenir  of  the 
Moors, — it  is  a  record  in  stone  of  nearly  all  that  has 
been  wrought  in  Spain.  But  it  is  the  memories  of  the 
Moors  that  are  the  most  pleasant  ones, — for  the  later 


60  A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES 

ones  descend  even  to  memories  of  the  demon  Torque- 
mada,  who  wrought  such  evil  in  the  name  of  God,  and 
of  harsh  Charles  the  Fifth,  who  marred  the  city  with 
his  unlovely  palace.  To  enjoy  the  beauty  and  charm 
of  this  wraith  of  a  city  it  is  better  not  to  enter  it  at  all, 
but  to  follow  the  Tagus  to  the  Alcantara  Gate,  and  to 
imagine  that  it  is,  as  of  yore,  the  entrance  to  a  Moorish 
city  during  the  golden  age  of  the  Moors.  And  indeed 
one  half  expects  to  see  some  burnoused  rider  clatter 
through  the  gate  and  over  the  bridge  on  his  way  to  join 
his  sloe-eyed  Fatimas  who  dwell  within.  But  the 
Moors  are  forever  gone  from  Toledo.  And  as  one 
turns  his  memory  from  this  beautiful  ghost  on  the 
Tagus  to  that  other  that  still  stands  in  loveliness  on  the 
heights  above  the  more  modern  Granada,  and  then  to 
exquisite  Venice  sinking  in  the  beauty  of  death  into  the 
sea,  there  involuntarily  comes  to  mind  that  line : 

"Ah,  broken  is  the  golden  bowl !  the  spirit  flown  forever !" 

But  grief  for  the  past  will  not  bring  the  past  to  us 
again.  And-  deep  in  our  souls  we  know  that  this  truth 
is  in  accordance  with  greater  wisdom  than  we  could 
have  shown  if  power  over  the  past  had  been  given  us. 
We  know  that  to-day  is  a  better  time  than  yesterday, 
that  the  little  span  of  time  called  Now  is  the  best  time 
of  all  that  has  been  or  will  be.  And  it  is  well,  perhaps, 
to  turn  from  the  cities  whose  lives  have  been  in  the  past, 


:  I  t^Jf J 


To  ENJOY  THE  BEAUTY  AND  CHARM  OF  THIS  WRAITH  OF  A  CITY, 
FOLLOW  THE  TAGUS  TO  THE  ALCANTARA  GATE 


A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES  61 

and  contemplate  one  that  grieves  not  for  the  past  nor 
has  apprehensions  for  the  future,  but  is  content  to  revel 
in  the  joys  and  glories  of  the  present.  And  such  a  city 
is  Nice.  Some  cities  are  like  women,  and  remind  us  of 
women  we  have  met  and  have  known  a  little  or  much. 
Nice  is  like  a  finished,  polished,  educated,  happy  woman 
of  the  world, — one  just  in  the  middle  age  of  youth, 
when  the  constraint  and  shyness  of  girlhood  are  past, 
and  the  sadness  of  old  age  not  yet  begun.  This  beau 
teous  daughter  of  the  South  is  a  favored  child  of  for 
tune,  and  was  born  with  a  golden  spoon  in  her  mouth. 
All  the  lands  of  the  world  have  sent  her  presents,  and 
have  sent  the  merriest  and  best  of  their  sons  and  daugh 
ters  to  at  once  instruct  her  and  assist  her  in  her  two 
great  arts  of  being  happy  and  of  imparting  happiness. 
Her  house  is  a  marble  palace  and  its  garden  is  an  ely- 
sium.  Her  estate  is  bounded  on  one  side  by  the  shining 
sea,  and  is  girt  about  on  the  other  sides  with  mountains 
upon  whose  slopes  olives  and  figs  and  palms  and  roses 
and  violets  and  many-hued  flowers  grow  and  bloom  in 
abundance  and  forever.  Only  mild  winds  blow  over 
her  domains,  and  sounds  of  laughter  and  joy  and  song 
are  ever  heard  in  her  halls.  And  in  her  place  of  beauty 
Nice  sits  enthroned,  and  looks  upon  the  passing  years 
as  upon  a  pleasant  procession  formed  for  her  entertain 
ment,  and  laughs  with  whoever  is  there  to  laugh  with 
her;  and,  too, — but  tell  it  not, — she  flirts.  Instead  of 


62  A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES 

the  useful  Confucian  motto  of  "Work  ever,"  she  has 
two  of  her  own,  "Be  happy  ever,"  and  "Love  ever." 
And  she  is  always  in  love, — not  enough  to  break  hearts, 
but  only  enough  to  make  them  palpitate  with  pleasure ; 
not  enough  to  cause  tragedies,  but  just  enough  to  pre 
vent  them.  It  is  impossible  to  enter  the  atmosphere  that 
surrounds  her  without  falling  in  love  with  her, — but  it 
is  wholesome  love  that  knows  not  jealousy.  It  is  not 
only  her  sensuous  charm  that  attracts,  for  this  coquette 
among  cities  is  very  wise  and  very  philosophic  in  a 
winning,  graceful  way.  She  has  paraphrased  the  old 
query  of  sorrowful  philosophy,  and  she  asks:  "Why 
should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  sad?"  To  philosophers 
she  says  that  philosophy  should  be  lived  and  put  into 
practice  as  well  as  written  down  in  books.  And  the 
philosopher  whose  bust  adorns  her  salon  is  Epicurus, — 
that  misunderstood  man  who,  for  telling  us  to  ration 
ally  enjoy  the  goods  the  gods  provide  us  and  extract 
sweetness  from  the  passing  years,  has  been  unjustly 
stigmatized  as  profligate  and  sybarite.  If  Calvin  and 
Wesley  could  each  have  had  the  good  fortune  of  a  vaca 
tion  in  a  place  like  Nice,  the  later  centuries  would  have 
known  more  of  tolerance  and  charity  and  sympathy; 
for  in  Nice  one  becomes  convinced  that  God  is  the 
friend  and  protector,  and  not  the  enemy  and  persecutor, 
of  the  creatures  he  has  brought  into  being.  And  if  old 
Khayyam  could  have  come  to  Nice,  casting  away  at  her 


A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES  63 

gates  the  parts  of  his  message  that  are  hopeless  and 
cold,  and  bearing  to  her  only  the  parts  that  are  beauti 
ful  and  true,  she  would  have  met  him  with  embraces, 
and  she  would  have  reared  to  him  a  statue  of  gold;  for, 
shorn  of  its  despair  and  freed  from  its  sorrow,  the  mes 
sage  of  Omar  Khayyam  is  what  Nice  follows  as  her 
law  of  life. 

Nice  is  wholly  Latin,  and  is  at  once  French  and 
Italian.  She  inherited  philosophy  and  wit  from  one  of 
her  ancestors  and  joyousness  from  the  other.  She  is 
not  serious,  and  you  know  that  all  the  time;  but  for 
all  that  it  is  long  before  you  forget  the  pleasure  it  gave 
you  to  have  this  fair  Latin  city  smile  into  your  eyes  and 
make  you  remember  that  in  all  other  places  in  the  world 
too  much  seriousness  mars  all  joys.  And  she  is  always 
clad  in  silks  and  laces,  and  garlanded  with  flowers.  She 
is  more  like  a  woman  of  the  world,  like  a  sweet,  self- 
sure,  gracious,  witty  woman, — "half  angel  and  half 
child," — than  even  is  Paris;  for  under  and  behind  all 
its  gaiety  Paris  thinks  and  works,  and  Nice  does 
neither. 

The  lotus,  lost  from  the  Nile-lands,  blooms  anew  in 
Nice,  and  those  who  go  there  eat  of  it  and  forget.  The 
Fountain  of  Perpetual  Youth  is  concealed  within  the 
limits  of  the  city,  and  the  invisible  spray  of  its  waters 
permeates  all  the  atmosphere  of  the  place,  intermingled 
with  the  spray  of  the  Fountains  of  Joy.  But  only  those 


64  A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES 

who  will  follow  Poe's  rules  for  happiness, — "cast  aside 
ambition,  live  in  the  open  air,  and  have  the  love  of  a 
woman," — may  really  bathe  in  the  magic  waters.  The 
reward  for  those  who  make  the  full  surrender  is  the 
stopping  for  the  time  of  the  advance  of  age, — and  even 
more, — for  stiff  old  Russian  princes  and  stern  old 
American  notables  soon  lose  the  wrinkles  from  their 
faces  and  their  souls,  and  play  wholesome  games  with 
their  grandchildren,  and  remind  their  wives  that  long 
ago  they  mutually  held  a  belief  to  the  effect  that  love  is 
ever  young.  In  Nice-land  even  the  peasants  are  poets, 
and  they  harvest  flowers  instead  of  corn.  It  is  always 
summer  there,  and  time  does  not  pass ;  the  few  clocks 
that  exist  are  kept  only  from  force  of  habit.  She  is  of 
royal  blood,  this  bright-eyed  Nice,  and  is  veritable 
Queen  of  the  Azure  Coast.  But  her  neighbors  are  of 
baser  clay.  If  one  passes  to  the  eastward  he  soon 
comes  to  an  imaginary  line, — whose  influence,  though, 
is  very  real, — beyond  which  tired,  hungry,  ragged  old 
Italy  is  trying  to  sing  as  it  painfully  toils  to  rear  a  better 
future  upon  the  poor  red  rocks  that  it  calls  soil.  If  one 
goes  to  the  north  he  is  almost  at  once  upon  barbarism 
and  squalor,  for  the  descendants  of  the  Ligurians  are 
yet  there,  living  not  much  better  than  did  their  savage 
ancestors  when  the  first  Greek  colonists  found  them. 
To  the  west  are  a  few  self-assertive  towns,  admiring 
themselves,  and  taking  the  pleasures  of  life  sadly  as 


A   ROSARY    OF    CITIES  65 

does  the  nation  from  which  they  chiefly  draw  their 
lives.  And  after  Toulon  one  Is  again  fully  in  the  wide 
world  of  effort  and  accomplishment,  of  commerce  and 
war,  of  ambition,  and  jealousy,  and  uncharitableness, 
and  trouble.  But  go  where  he  will  he  will  ever  bear 
with  him  memories  of  the  graces  and  charms  of  sweet, 
careless  Nice,  and  of  the  perfumes  of  the  flowers  that 
surround  her. 

But  Nice  is  not  the  only  happy  city,  nor  the  only 
one  like  a  woman.  If  one  should  imagine, — as,  of 
course,  one  should  not, — that  very  long  ago  and  very 
far  away  he  had  had  a  beautiful,  bright-eyed  Maya 
sweetheart,  and  if  he  should  seek  for  one  that  would  be 
among  cities  what  she  was  among  women,  I  think 
Guadalajara  would  be  the  city  he  would  choose.  For 
Guadalajara  is  voluptuous,  and  beautiful,  and  sensuous, 
and  she  laughs  the  quiet,  happy  laughter  of  the  South 
land,  and  cares  not  for  dull  books  and  unproven  lore, 
and  knows  much  of  gentleness,  and  joy,  and  love, — and 
she  wears  garlands  of  wild  orchids  in  her  hair!  It  is 
quiet  in  Guadalajara, — quiet  without  being  somber  or 
sad.  There  is  rest  there, — rest  that  is  neither  torpor 
nor  idleness.  To  live  under  that  kindly  tropic  sun,  to 
pass  the  bright  days  under  the  matchless  skies  of  Ja 
lisco,  to  gaze  at  night  up  at  the  constellations  that  are 
not  known  in  colder  climes,  to  smell  the  scents  of  the 
myriads  of  rich  flowers,  to  join  in  the  peaceful  and  con- 


66  A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES 

tented  lives  of  the  peaceful  and  unhurried  inhabitants 
of  this  Flower  City  of  the  Indians,  to  sit  at  night  under 
the  trees  in  the  bright  plaza,  with  the  golden-domed 
cathedral  seeming  to  call  out  that  it,  too,  is  a  living  and 
a  happy  thing  that  has  managed  to  get  in  tune  with  the 
simple  hearts  of  those  who  cherish  it,  is  almost  enough 
in  itself  to  justify  one  for  having  borne  all  the  ills  and 
suffered  all  the  evils  that  we  find  on  our  swift  journey 
between  the  two  eternities.  Will  you  tell  this  beautiful 
Indian  maiden  of  a  city  that  you  are  ambitious?  She 
will  placidly  and  happily  laugh,  and  ask  why.  Will  you 
tell  her  that  it  is  the  mission  and  the  duty  of  a  man  to 
work  during  the  few  days  that  are  given  him  before 
that  eternal  night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work?  She 
will  entwine  you  in  her  soft,  round  arms,  press  flowers 
to  your  face  for  you  to  inhale  their  enchanted  perfumes, 
point  to  the  peace  of  the  ultramarine  skies  that  rest 
over  her  in  perpetual  tranquillity,  and  tell  you  that  she 
has  learned  from  her  skies  and  her  mountains  and  her 
bees  and  birds  and  flowers  that  the  course  of  wisdom 
lies  in  really  living,  not  in  spending  our  all-too-few 
years  in  ceaselessly  making  ready  to  live, — in  making 
work  and  its  profits  means  to  an  end  and  not  merely 
ends  in  themselves.  Environment  is  responsible  for 
many  things, — even  morals,  the  philosophers  say;  and 
from  her  point  of  view  this  glorious  barbarian  princess 
may  be  right,  and  anyhow  she  could  not  think  other- 


A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES  67 

wise,  nor  could  any  who  rest  under  the  eternal  sunshine 
that  gilds  her  splendid  home. 

From  the  cities  that  smile  to  old  Nantes  that  toils 
is  a  far  cry,  and  yet  Nantes  has  a  personality,  too,  per 
haps  even  more  akin  to  ours  than  the  others,  for  with 
her,  rain  is  mingled  with  her  sunshine,  and  earnest 
ness  is  combined  with  her  lighter  moods.  Old 
legends  say  that  there  was  a  time  in  the  land  now  called 
Brittany  when  it  was  populated  by  a  goodly  and  a 
kindly  race,  with  no  rulers  and  no  servers,  among 
whom  no  one  owned  property,  and  who  earned  and 
§hared  all  things  together;  and  it  is  said  that  in  that 
happy  time  all  men  were  brave  and  strong  and  true, 
and  all  women  tender  and  beautiful  and  kind,  and  that 
life  flowed  on  without  illness  or  weakness  until  the  nat 
ural  span  was  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  instead  of 
the  paltry  three-score  and  ten  that  now  is  marked  as  a 
rich  allotment.  But  other  races  came  during  those 
great  migrations  whose  tales  are  lost  in  the  mists  of 
the  time  that  preceded  history,  and  with  them  came 
new  laws  of  power  and  caste,  and  the  golden  age  was 
over.  Later  came  the  Romans,  worshipping  their  gods 
of  conquest  and  commerce,  and  bringing  that  iron  thing 
that  even  until  now  continues  to  be  called  Progress;  and 
they  called  the  peoples  barbarians,  and  so  they  took 
away  their  lands,  and  builded  walled  colonies  among 
them,  and  divided  themselves  and  the  conquered  peo- 


68  A    ROSARY    OF    CITIES 

pies  into  arbitrary  classes.  The  generations  and  the 
conquerors  passed,  but  the  institutions  remained;  and 
in  time  the  descendants  of  those  ancient  happy  ones 
again  became  content.  And  it  came  to  be  said  that  in 
this  land  the  plebeians  loved  the  aristocrats,  and  the 
aristocrats  guarded  and  protected  the  well-being  of  the 
plebeians,  and  both  high  and  low  came  to  believe  that 
they  had  properly  solved  the  question  of  the  relation 
ship  of  classes.  And  some  natural  and  good  results 
came  from  their  beliefs.  There  were  in  this  country 
thousands  of  men  who  had  helped  to  build  and  protect 
it,  and  thousands  more  were  to  be  born,  all  of  whom 
should  have  had  some  rights  over  the  fate  of  the 
country  where  destiny  had  placed  them.  But  the  coun 
try  was  deemed  to  belong  to  a  family,  and  in  time  it 
became  the  inheritance  of  a  slender  girl, — who  de 
lighted  to  wear  the  grim  arms  of  war,  and  who,  for 
getting  the  old  poet-tales  of  love,  determined  to  wed 
only  a  king.  With  her  great  dowry  she  bought  a 
queen's  crown,  and  Brittany  was  joined  to  France,  and 
old  Nantes,  from  being  a  capital,  became  only  a  pro 
vincial  town.  The  Bretons,  though,  did  not  much 
grieve,  for  their  old  institutions  persisted,  and  they 
continued  to  live  out  their  lives  as  it  pleased  them  to 
live.  And  then, — for  weak  human  heads  are  so  easily 
turned  by  unlimited  power, — Louis  the  Fourteenth, 
who  had  become  the  owner  of  this  as  well  as  of  all 


A   ROSARY  OF  CITIES  69 

the  lands  of  France, — cracked  his  insolent  whip,  not 
only  in  the  face  of  the  Paris  parliament,  but  in  the 
faces  of  humanity  and  posterity,  and  the  first  seed  of 
the  French  Revolution  was  sown.  Humanity  later 
wrecked  the  throne  upon  which  the  supreme  ego 
tist  had  sat,  and  rolled  the  severed  head  of  his  descend 
ant  in  the  dust.  And  old  gray  Nantes,  the  lover  of  the 
ancient  regime,  protested  in  her  heart.  The  French 
Revolution  continues,  although  the  historians  do  not 
always  note  its  progress,  as  its  weapons  now  are  not 
sword  and  fire  and  the  guillotine ;  and  old  Nantes  con 
tinues  to  protest,  and  in  Republican,  free-thinking 
France  she  remains  Royalist  and  Catholic, — and  her 
dreams,  like  those  of  Florence,  are  in  an  age  that  has 
passed,  and  much  of  the  content  she  once  knew  is  now 
forgotten.  The  fault  may  lie  with  Nantes,  but,  be  that 
as  it  may,  the  battle  for  bread  seems  harder  for  those 
who  must  toil  than  in  the  best  of  the  older  days.  But 
that  grim,  time-old  battle  for  bread  is  always  so  much 
in  evidence  that  for  once  we  may  be  allowed  to  forget 
it  as  we  go  into  this  old  town  that  is  the  relic  of  an  age 
that  in  other  places  is  almost  past.  And  so  we  will 
look  upon  the  crumbling  walls  of  the  cathedral  that  will 
never  be  finished,  we  will  listen  to  the  chimes  of  the 
many  churches  through  which  the  city  pours  out  its 
sorrows  and  its  joys,  we  will  visit  the  quaint  old 
"places,"  and  the  winding,  narrow  streets  that  remind 


70  A   ROSARY  OF  CITIES 

one  of  Italy  and  are  survivals  of  those  hard  old  times 
when  streets  were  made  crooked  so  that  bullets  might 
not  carry  too  far  in  them,  we  will  enter  the  gloomy 
chateau  that  stands  as  a  reminder  of  the  feudalism  that 
is  going  out  of  the  world  for  the  good  of  the  world, 
and  we  will  enjoy  the  quiet,  placid,  tranquil  charm  of 
the  ancient  city  without  burdening  ourselves  with  its 
griefs  and  troubles.  Sometimes  it  is  a  boon  to  be  a 
stranger.  One  may  then  look  upon  cities  from  better 
heights  and  clearer  viewpoints.  He  knows  that  biting 
ambition,  bitter  envy,  arrogance,  slander,  bigotry, 
hatred,  and  all  injustices  thrive  within  them  all  in 
greater  or  less  degree,  but  to  him  those  evils  have  not 
meaning,  at  any  rate  not  local  meaning.  And  if  one 
enters  Nantes  to  view  it  from  a  stranger's  standpoint 
he  will  find  a  city  of  many  charms,  a  city  of  wealth,  and 
culture  and  refinement, — wealth  that  does  not  vul 
garly  flaunt  and  advertise  itself,  culture  that  is  not  arro 
gant,  and  refinement  that  is  not  egotistical.  The  city, 
in  its  spirit,  is  a  survival,  the  relic  of  a  system  that  was 
overturned  by  the  wild  Revolutionists  who  sowed  their 
heavy  crop  of  evil  in  preparation  for  the  harvest  of 
good  that  has  begun  to  appear  in  the  world.  And  in 
the  olden  days  Nantes  was  wrong,  for  it  said  that  men 
should  be  divided  and  classified,  and  should  enjoy  the 
riches  of  the  world  (which  is  only  lent  to  humanity  by 
God)  according  to  the  accidents  of  their  birth.  The 


A   ROSARY  OF   CITIES  71 

Revolutionists  said  that  all  men  are  equal,  in  that  state 
ment  going  farther  than  nature  herself  has  ever  gone. 
And  as  one  leaves  the  busy  trafficking  and  bickering  of 
the  city  and  wanders  along  the  cooler  and  better  paths 
that  skirt  the  banks  of  the  Loire  and  wind  in  and  out 
among  the  fertile  little  farms  where  men  are  winning 
their  right  to  live  in  the  oldest  and  most  noble  way 
known  to  the  race,  he  thinks  that  both  the  city  and  the 
Revolutionists  were  wrong,  and  that  Plato  and  Na 
poleon, — for  antipodes  are  sometimes  near  together  at 
points, — were  more  nearly  right.  For  Plato  said  that 
all  men  should  have  equal  chance  to  prove  their  merit 
and  win  the  rewards  of  life,  and  Napoleon  said  that 
he  believed  in  an  aristocracy,  but  in  one  based  entirely 
upon  worth  and  achievement.  But  one  may  turn  from 
the  involved  plexus  of  right  and  wrong  to  learn  one 
true  thing  from  this  continuing  port-city  of  that  for 
gotten  tribe  called  the  Nannetes,  a  thing  which  may 
also  be  learned  from  any  city  in  the  world, — that  the 
best  city  is  a  good  place  to  go  from,  that  the  country, 
where  trees  put  forth  their  leaves,  and  flowers  bloom, 
and  birds  sing,  and  the  life  principle  stirs  in  seeds,  and 
crops  ripen,  and  nature  gives  forth  her  stores  to  all 
who  will  win  and  deserve  them, — that  the  country,  less 
modified  from  nature  than  are  cities,  is  the  most  nat 
ural,  the  most  logical,  and  the  most  rational  place  for 
humans  to  abide,  and  that  if  cities  will  be  lovely  the 
country  must  be  let  into  them,  as  is  the  case  at  Paris. 


IV 
A    ROSARY    OF    ISLANDS 


"Larger   constellations   burning,   mellow   moons    and    happy 

skies, 

Breaths   of   tropic   shade   and    palms   in   cluster,   knots   of 
Paradise." 


'  I  VHE  charm  of  the  islands  of  the  sea  has  been 
known  to  all  peoples  in  all  times.  The  Greeks 
placed  the  imaginary  habitations  of  the  race  of  the 
blessed  upon  islands,  and  all  poets  have  dreamed  of 
islands,  shut  away  from  the  greater  and  grosser  world, 
where  life  could  flow  on  in  peace  and  joy,  free  from 
the  cares  and  strifes  of  the  larger  areas.  Utopia  was 
an  island.  We  may  not  know  why  islands  appeal  to 
us  so  strongly,  but  it  is  enough  to  know  that  they  do. 
Much  of  the  sweetness  of  life  is  vitiated  and  often 
wholly  lost  if  we  continually  try  to  analyze  all  things. 
I  continue  to  be  sorry  for  that  misguided  German  biol 
ogist  who  worked  so  assiduously  in  his  attempt  to  dis 
sect  and  analyze  love  according  to  scientific  methods. 
So  I  shall  go  on  loving  islands  even  if  I  cannot  give  an 
explicit  definition  of  the  reason  that  inspires  my  love. 
Who  that  has  sailed  on  the  Tyrrhenian  Sea,  on 
such  days  and  under  such  a  sun  and  such  skies  and  float 
ing  clouds  as  inspired  the  brush  of  Turner,  can  wonder 
at  our  love  for  islands?  As  one  sails  there  he  sees 
something  rising  in  the  west, — vast,  shadowy,  mystical, 

75 


76  A    ROSARY    OF   ISLANDS 

and  beautiful, — that  seems  to  float  between  the  blue  sea 
and  the  bluer  heavens.  It  seems  to  belong  to  that 
world  of  things  of  which  Poe  dreamed, — the  things 
that  need  have  no  other  reason  for  being  than  beauty. 
It  is  wild  Corsica.  And  farther  on,  like  a  jewel  flash 
ing  under  the  sun,  lies  peaceful  Elba, — the  petty  prison 
of  that  Corsican  who  wrought  such  mighty  evil,  and 
from  whose  works  such  mighty  good  has  come,  even 
if  the  good  is  not  worth  the  fearful  price  it  cost.  It  is 
better  to  see  these  islands  from  a  distance,  for  the 
narrowness,  sordidness,  and  pettiness  of  the  lives  of 
their  half-barbarous  inhabitants  is  not  then  in  evidence. 
If  one  stands  upon  the  quays  of  Naples  and  looks 
into  the  city  he  sees  as  great  a  picture  of  human  misery, 
— even  though  those  who  endure  it  know  a  kind  of 
sunny  joy, — as  exists  in  all  the  tired  land  of  Italy.  But 
he  has  but  to  turn  his  face  toward  the  sea,  and  there 
across  the  smiling  bay,  shining  under  the  sun  like  a 
Venus-jewel  freshly  born  from  the  happy  waves, 
dimples  and  glistens  Capri,  the  sweetest  and  fairest 
island  of  the  Italian  coast.  Capri  has  history  enough 
to  rejoice  even  the  heart  of  a  pedant,  but  it  is  not  its 
history  that  makes  it  interesting  and  attractive.  It  is 
one  land  that  is  happy  even  though  having  a  history. 
Those  cheery  islanders  are  Italian  but  more  than  Ital 
ian.  Whatever  we  find  in  the  so  harshly  misjudged 
lower  Italians  that  we  do  not  like  the  natives  of  Capri 


WHO  THAT  HAS  SAILED  ON  THE  TYRRHENIAN  SEA  ...  .  CAN  WONDER 
AT  OUR  LOVE  FOR  ISLANDS  ? 


A    ROSARY    OF    ISLANDS  77 

have  not.  And  in  what  greater  land  of  the  greater 
world  can  we  find  such  a  proportion  of  happy  people 
and  such  a  small  percentage  that  are  unhappy?  To 
work  in  Capri  seems  as  play  seems  in  other  places. 
And  to  smile,  and  laugh,  and  show  white  teeth  between 
red  lips,  and  dance  in  joy,  and  sing  from  the  rising  of 
the  sun  until  eyes  close  in  sleep,  is  as  natural  in  Capri 
as  it  is  to  breathe,  and  to  complain  against  the  injus 
tice  of  fate,  in  other  and  colder  and  more  unlovely 
places. 

And  away  across  the  trackless  leagues  of  the  sound 
ing  seas,  that  continue  forever  and  forever  to  sing  the 
great  songs  that  we  cannot  understand,  its  shores 
washed  by  another  sea  as  beautiful  as  the  Mediterra 
nean,  its  brow  fanned  by  warmer  breezes  than  the  Ital 
ian  islands  know,  lies  another  island  that  was  even 
more  beautiful  than  this  fairest  daughter  of  Italy.  For 
before  its  great  cataclysm  of  horror  and  woe  fell  upon 
it,  before  its  once  lovely  mountain  rent  itself  asunder 
and  made  of  its  island  home  a  worse  Hell  than  even 
Dante  or  the  agents  of  the  Inquisition  could  conceive, 
Martinique  was  the  fairest,  most  lovely  island  of  all 
the  myriads  that  dot  the  seven  seas.  To  come  upon 
Martinique  in  those  better  days,  to  catch  a  first  glimpse 
of  majestic  old  Pelee  rising, — then  in  peace, — above 
the  green  and  yellow  fields  and  the  mysterious  forests 
that  fringed  his  base,  then  to  see  the  white  town 


78  A    ROSARY    OF    ISLANDS 

nestling  in  such  restful  peace  against  the  land,  with 
splendid  royal  palms  rising  in  truly  regal  splendor 
behind  it,  was  to  gaze  upon  one  of  the  fairest  scenes 
that  travelers  win  among  the  rewards  they  receive 
for  the  hardships  entailed  upon  them  as  they  make 
their  journeys  to  the  far  lands  of  the  earth.  The 
peace  of  the  island,  the  brightness  of  its  blue  skies, 
the  soft  whisperings  of  the  cooling  Trade  Winds,  the 
content  of  the  laughing,  dimpling  sea,  all  seemed  to 
be  reflected  in  the  islanders  themselves,  and  they  were, 
and  are,  the  best  and  most  amiable  of  all  the  Carib 
bean  populations.  But  even  in  that  beauteous  island, 
whose  willing  soil  gives  forth  in  great  abundance  in 
exchange  for  little  tolls  of  toil,  where  it  would  seem 
that  peace  and  plenty  should  go  forever  hand  in  hand, 
the  lot  of  mankind  is  very  hard.  Men  toil  through 
out  their  spans  of  life  in  order  only  that  they  may  eat, 
drink  and  be  sheltered;  and  women, — shaped  like  the 
marble  goddesses  of  ancient  Greece, — walk  up  and 
down  the  weary  paths  of  those  rugged  mountains 
throughout  all  the  bright  hours  of  the  sunny  days  for 
the  mere  pittances  that  sustain  their  lives.  Often  they 
bear, — with  their  other  load,  for  they  are  beasts  of 
burden, — young  children  also  upon  their  heads.  But 
toil, — which  is  not  the  same  as  loved  labors  willingly 
performed, — and  the  struggle  of  mankind  for  exist 
ence,  and  the  limitations  of  our  happiness  because  of 


A    ROSARY   OF   ISLANDS  79 

our  ignorance,  are  things  that  one  need  not  go  to 
Martinique  to  see,  and  it  is  enough  to  remember  the 
glinting  of  the  rays  of  the  tropic  sun  upon  the  waves 
of  deeper  blue  than  are  known  in  Northern  climes,  to 
remember  the  schools  of  dolphins  and  flying  fishes  that 
leap  and  play  upon  the  surface  of  the  happy  sea,  and 
the  chambered  nautilii,  mere  specks  of  sensate  flesh, 
who  unfurl  their  living  sails  and  steer  their  courses 
as  truly  as  do  those  other  specks  among  which  we  are 
numbered.  All  Southlands  should  be  places  of  joy, 
where  grim  care  and  the  hard  destiny  of  humanity 
should  be  forgotten.  And,  too,  too  much  is  said  of 
human  misery, — for,  when  the  whole  account  is  con 
sidered,  humanity  knows  much  more  of  joy  than  of 
misery.  How  may  we  know  what  joys  brighten  the 
lives  of  those  bearers  of  burdens  in  Martinique?  But 
joys  they  surely  know,  as  do  all  humans.  A  perverted, 
self-hypnotized  Schopenhauer  may  convince  many  that 
our  race  dwells  in  evil,  surrounded  by  ever-impending 
terrors,  and  under  the  malignant  persecutions  of  a 
malevolent  Nature  that  pursues  us  with  evil  from  our 
cradles  to  our  graves.  But  it  is  all  false, — and  deep 
down  in  his  inmost  heart  of  hearts  each  one  knows  for 
himself  that  it  is  false.  The  world  is  very  fair,  life 
is  very  sweet,  our  age  is  a  good  age,  and,  so  far  as 
men  can  read  its  purposes,  the  whole  destiny  of  man 
is  good, — even  the  death  that  ends  it,  which  is  as 


8o  A    ROSARY   OF   ISLANDS 

natural  as  life,  and  which  may  be  but  a  new  birth  into 
an  even  better  world.  And  if  that  should  be  true, 
what  matter  if  we  go  on  to  other  worlds  because  of 
the  bursting  of  volcanoes  such  as  Pelee  or  in  the  slower 
process  of  inevitable  nature?  Science  has  proven  that 
neither  space  nor  time  have  limits.  What  matter,  then, 
in  what  little  corner  of  limitless  space  we  pass  some  of 
the  great  measures  of  time? 

Islands,  like  cities,  seem  to  resemble  their  popula 
tions.  Hayti  should  be,  it  would  seem,  as  lovely  a 
place  as  exists  in  all  the  Antilles, — but  it  is  not.  Its 
soil  seems  saturated  with  the  fearsome  superstitions 
and  dark,  savage  rites  of  its  half-wild  inhabitants. 
Curacao  seems  as  dull,  as  uninteresting,  and  as  self- 
important  as  its  drowsing  people.  And  Corsica,  in 
spite  of  the  grandeur  of  its  towering  mountains,  seems 
sullen,  fierce,  and  in  its  soul  unlovely.  But  one  may 
find  enough  places  on  the  mainland  that  have  disagree 
able  features,  and  in  islands  we  will  only  go  to  those 
that  know  how  to  appreciate  their  own  good  fortune 
in  being  separated  from  the  ambitions  and  madnesses, 
the  vices  and  stupidities,  of  the  continents. 

Tucked  away  under  the  shelter  of  a  projecting 
Breton  cape  there  is  a  tiny  island  that  to  those  who 
know  it,  and  have  divined  the  beauties  of  its  spirit,  is 
one  of  the  best  places  in  all  Europe.  It  has  no  great 
architectural  monuments,  no  great  galleries,  no  pal- 


A   ROSARY   OF   ISLANDS  81 

aces ;  no  great  marts  of  commerce  or  devouring  bourses 
of  finance  exist  upon  it.  But  it  contains  things  that 
are  all  too  rapidly  taking  their  flight  from  the  greater 
France, — the  quiet  content  of  simplicity,  the  childlike 
belief  in  the  goodness  of  God  and  of  destiny,  the  real 
fraternity  of  people.  And  this  sweet  little  island  of 
Brehat  has  another  inestimable  advantage  over  France, 
— it  knows  not  of  the  philosophers.  Voltaire's  words 
and  influence  have  not  crossed  the  water  that  divides 
it  from  the  mainland,  Schopenhauer  is  a  name  un 
known  within  its  narrow  boundaries,  and  the  name  and 
melancholy  of  Marcus  Aurelius  are  unknown  as  well; 
and  the  soulless,  hopeless  philosophy  that  is  Godless 
and  creedless, — and  above  all  arrogant, — which  is 
blighting  the  very  soul  of  modern  France,  has  found 
no  lodgment  there.  For  its  people  are  too  simple  to 
have  become  intoxicated  with  a  little  intellectuality 
and  from  a  few  half-learned  lessons,  as  has  France, 
and  their  lives  run  on  in  the  same  untroubled  grooves 
that  were  known  in  the  younger  days  of  the  country  of 
which  their  tiny  islet  is  a  part.  But  they  have  other 
evils, — although  with  them  they  do  not  much  bear 
the  appearance  of  evils.  They  bow  down  in  old 
superstitions,  and  heavy  dogmas  are  fastened  about 
their  creed  and  their  minds.  But,  anyhow,  of  two 
evils  they  bear  the  one  that  is  least,  for  even  dog- 


82  A    ROSARY    OF    ISLANDS 

matism  and  superstitions  are  better  things  than  hope 
less  philosophies. 

Perhaps  one  should  not  tarry  too  long  at  Brehat* 
To  have  the  best  memories  of  its  charms  and  delights, 
of  its  simple  people  and  their  simple  lives,  one  should 
see  and  go  away.  For  beyond  the  strip  of  water  that 
makes  its  landward  boundary  there  come  echoes  of 
that  great  human  cry  and  spur,  "So  much  to  do,  so 
little  done,"  and  one  feels  anew  that  while  quiet  has 
charms,  work  has  more;  and  he  knows  that  the  world 
is  better  because  all  men  do  not  live  the  peaceful,  quiet 
lives  of  these  simple  islanders.  For  labor  has  rewards 
to  give,  even  greater  than  those  given  by  repose. 

Set  like  a  jewel  on  the  breast  of  the  Mediterranean, 
midway  between  old  Europe  and  older  Africa,  and 
taking  something  from  them  both,  is  the  happy  island 
of  Mallorca, — really  a  happy  land,  containing  no 
paupers  and  no  millionaires,  whose  inhabitants  have 
no  need  to  fare  forth  into  the  world  in  search  of  any 
thing.  To  come  upon  Mallorca  in  the  early  morning, 
at  its  port  of  Palma,  to  see  the  golden  walls  of  its  old 
Gothic  cathedral  reddening  and  glowing  in  the  morn 
ing  sunlight,  and  the  white  and  red  town  behind  it,  is 
to  see  another  of  the  best  of  the  world's  great  gallery 
of  pictures.  But  it  is  not  Palma  that  is  fullest  of  in 
terest  in  Mallorca,  nor  that  lauded  palace  of  Miramar, 
which  is  so  wofully  disappointing, — being  but  the 


A    ROSARY    OF   ISLANDS  83 

tawdry,  tinsel  toy  of  an  idle  rich  man,  lacking  in 
beauty,  plan  and  finish.  Hard  by  the  northern  shore 
of  the  island  there  lies  a  better  thing  to  see, — a  white 
town,  like  a  silver  chalice  in  a  velvet  case,  and  which, 
as  one  ascends  the  tall  mountains  from  it,  takes  on 
newer  shades  of  beauty  the  farther  it  is  left  below. 

To  cross  the  island  to  the  eastward,  through  the 
best  tilled  soil  in  all  Europe  or  Africa,  through  great 
orchards  and  groves  of  almonds  and  of  olives  beside 
which  the  veteran  tree  of  Beaulieu  is  young,  past  the 
quaint,  picturesque  towns  that  are  neither  European 
nor  African,  and  down  at  last  to  the  dimpling  sea  again, 
is  an  excursion  worth  going  to  Mallorca  to  perform 
if  one  did  nothing  else.  The  rural  and  pastoral  scenes 
of  this  island  unconsciously  remind  one  of  the  wood 
cut  pictures  from  old  bibles.  But  where  the  sea 
is  reached  again  is  the  greatest  thing  Mallorca  con 
tains, — the  wonderful  grottoes.  Usually  grottoes  and 
caverns  are  the  most  overrated  things  that  travelers 
find  on  their  journeys.  The  caverns  of  Manitou  are 
worth  seeing;  and  the  famed  Blue  Grotto  of  Capri 
once,  and  if  one  has  idle  time  on  his  hands.  But  the 
grottoes  of  Mallorca  are  as  different  from  this  class 
as  a  Gothic  cathedral  is  different  from  a  railway  sta 
tion.  A  Mallorcan  peasant  was  our  guide  into  these 
underground  temples  of  peace.  We  passed  with  him 
deep  down  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  under  the  very 


84  A    ROSARY    OF   ISLANDS 

waves  of  the  sea  itself,  and  then  when  he  lighted  his 
magnesia  lamp  we  discovered  that  we  stood  in  the 
presence  of  something  that  rose  above  a  natural  curi 
osity, — a  real  something,  intangible,  inexpressible,  yet 
existing.  Before  us,  changing  by  their  own  color  the 
light  of  our  guide's  lamp,  were  disclosed  as  perfect 
structures,  as  harmonious  things  of  beauty,  as  can  be 
found  in  all  the  world.  Architects  might  copy  from 
the  forms  of  these  hidden  caverns,  and  all  the  forms 
they  know  would  be  added  to  and  improved  upon. 
Waters  lie  in  some  of  the  caverns,  sometimes  widen 
ing  even  into  lakes.  They  have  lain  there  since  first 
the  sea  submerged  the  mighty  mountain  chain  of  which 
Mallorca  is  but  a  projecting  crest, — lain  there  in  pur 
ity,  undefiled  by  anything, — for  nothing  that  has  life, 
either  vegetable  or  animal,  exists  in  those  ancient  vir 
gin  waters. 

To  attempt  to  describe  these  marvelous  grottoes 
would  be  as  futile  as  to  attempt  to  describe  the  star- 
spangled  sky  to  one  born  blind.  The  form,  wrought 
in  perfection,  that  has  been  modeled  in  them,  passes 
human  words.  The  eternal  yet  not  fearsome  silence 
that  pervades  them  also  passes  description,  but  above 
even  the  perfection  and  the  silence  there  is  a  greater 
Something  in  these  places  of  beauty  that  were  so  care 
fully  hidden  away  under  the  earth  and  under  the  rolling 
waves  of  the  sea.  We  felt  that  we  stood  in  the  in- 


A    ROSARY    OF    ISLANDS  85 

visible  presence  of  the  All-pervading  Soul, — in  the 
presence  of  something  higher,  better,  holier  than  we 
had  known  before.  Old  terrors  dropped  from  us  as 
we  stood  in  this  sacred  temple  of  Nature.  We  no 
longer  dreaded  the  significance  of  that  dread  word 
Nirvana, — for  if  the  eternal  peace  that  is  said  to  come 
when  all  that  is  is  again  merged  with  all  that  is,  is 
like  unto  the  great  yet  beautiful  peace  of  these  grot 
toes,  we  shall  find  it  better  than  any  other  thing  that 
could  be.  We  had  been  conducted  into  this  holy  of 
holies  of  Nature  by  a  crude  Mallorcan  peasant,  but 
in  the  presence  of  the  majestic,  mysterious  perfection 
of  peace  and  beauty  that  surrounded  us  all  he  was  no 
longer  a  peasant,  but  he  stood  forth,  in  his  proper 
person  as  a  human  being,  with  all  the  rights,  and 
heir  to  the  same  splendid  destiny,  that  pertain  to  all 
humans. 

Miners  know  the  joy  of  seeing  the  sunlight  after 
having  been  for  hours  underground.  We  all  knew 
that  joy,  but  at  the  great  grottoes  we  did  not  feel  it, — 
and  even  the  light  of  the  sun  and  the  waves  of  the 
smiling  sea  looked  poorer  and  more  mean  than  we  had 
ever  seen  them, — for  we  had  stood  in  the  presence  of 
the  soul  of  an  island, — in  the  presence  of  a  something 
that  may  be  like  the  Great  Soul  that,  in  greater  perfec 
tion  and  more  perfect  peace,  still  remains  hidden  from 
our  eyes. 


86  A    ROSARY    OF   ISLANDS 

v 

Kings  and  armies  with  banners,  from  century  to 
century,  came  down  upon  the  rich  fields  of  Mallorca. 
They  fought  their  little  wars,  held  their  little  pag 
eants,  and  passed  on  to  their  little  graves.  Towns 
were  reared  and  destroyed,  generations  passed,  men 
came  and  went  like  the  grasses  of  the  meadows,  know 
ing  not  of  that  wondrous  soul  of  their  island  that 
rested  there,  half  under  the  island's  rim,  half  under 
the  sea.  The  kings  and  armies  and  men  and  genera 
tions  went,  but  the  grottoes  remained,  pure,  beautiful, 
and  perfect, — emblems  of  the  perfection,  the  patience, 
and  the  beauty  of  Nature,  and  as  symbols  for  the  reali 
zation  of  all  the  high  and  soaring  dreams,  of  all  the 
dreams  of  love  and  joy  and  peace,  that  all  men,  even 
the  meanest,  have  known.  For  whoso  looks  upon 
this  beauty,  that  is  neither  of  the  earth  nor  of  the  sea 
nor  of  the  heavens,  knows  that  he  has  ga^zed  upon  a 
visible  image  of  two  of  the  great  things  for  which  the 
souls  of  humans  pine, — perfection  and  peace.  And 
we  can  go  on  with  greater  patience,  too,  for  we  have 
come  to  know  that  perfection  is  not  yet  attainable,  and 
that  perfect  peace  is  not  for  us  in  our  lives  in  flesh. 


V 
EGYPT 


"Think,  in  this  batter 'd  Caravanserai 
Whose  Portals  are  alternate  Night  and  Day, 
How  Sultan  after  Sultan  with  his  Pomp 
Abode  his  destin'd  Hour,  and  went  his  way." 


V 
EGYPT 

T  IKE  a  great  green  serpent  with  a  shining  triangu- 
£"J  lar  head,  the  fertile  land  composing  the  valley 
and  delta  of  the  Nile  lies  between  the  mighty  encom 
passing  deserts  of  Libya  and  Arabia.  Coming  out  of 
the  mysterious  Southland,  winding  its  way  for  thou 
sands  of  miles  between  limitless  areas  of  sand,  its 
banks  lined  for  narrow  distances  with  green  fields  and 
the  habitations  of  men,  flows  the  wondrous  stream  of 
Nile, — the  one  thing  that  makes  human  life  possible 
in  all  the  land  of  Egypt.  It  flows  from  sources  that 
for  ages  were  undiscovered,  and  which  even  in  this 
day  of  boasted  knowledge  are  yet  incompletely  known. 
And  the  Nile  is  Egypt.  In  its  long  course,  that  be 
gins  in  the  great  regions  of  rains,  on  through  the  great 
rainless  lands,  and  through  the  fertile  valley  of  its  own 
enriching,  it  passes  the  countries  of  various  peoples, 
and  the  tombs  and  ruined  temples  and  palaces  of  other 
peoples  who  existed,  and  ceased  to  exist,  in  the  first 
dim  dawn  of  history.  It  flows  through  the  lands  of 
savages, — perhaps  cannibals, — on  through  the  coun- 

89 


9o  EGYPT 

tries  of  hunters,  herdsmen,  tillers  of  the  soil,  past  the 
cities  of  tradesmen,  and  down  at  last  to  the  cities  of 
those  who  fare  forth  upon  the  seas.  From  its  sources 
to  its  mouths  the  ascending  order  in  the  scale  of  hu 
man  civilization  that  exists  along  its  course  is  much 
as  that  noted  by  scientists  in  diagramming  the  slow 
progress  of  the  human  race  from  savagery  toward 
the  as  yet  but  dimly  dreamed  of  goal  called  Civiliza 
tion. 

While  it  is  more  than  Egypt,  yet  the  Nile  is  Egypt, 
and  has  always  been  Egypt,  and  will  always  be  Egypt. 
Whether  Tanisian,  or  Theban,  or  Nubian,  or  Persian, 
or  Assyrian,  or  Jew,  or  Greek,  or  Roman,  or  Turk, 
or  Briton  has  directed  the  destinies  of  the  people,  they 
all  have  had  to  bow  to  the  Nile,  and  they  have  been 
able  to  extract  from  the  ruled  or  conquered  land  only 
such  tribute  as  could  be  taken  from  the  wealth  the 
great  river  gave.  From  long  before  that  long-gone 
time  when  half-mythical  Mena  formed  the  Nomes  of 
the  first-known  Egypt  into  one  kingdom, — from  the 
primal  time  when  first  a  human  being  stood  upright 
in  its  valley — the  beneficent  Nile  has  given  all  that 
Egypt  has  had  of  food,  and  drink,  and  substance,  and 
health,  and  life,  and  tribute  for  the  robbers  and  tax- 
leviers  and  kings  and  priests  and  commanders.  The 
hot  simoons  of  the  desert  have  been  cooled  upon  its 
broad  bosom;  its  never-failing  inundations  have  al- 


EGYPT  91 

ways  fertilized  the  fields,  and  its  annual  renewing  of 
the  soil  with  loam  from  the  far-away  mountains  has 
caused  Egypt  to  be  a  land  of  perpetual  fertility. 

To  the  east  of  the  Nile  the  Arabian  Desert, — beau 
tiful  beyond  words  to  describe,  but  where,  except  in  a 
few  narrow  places,  Nature  forbids  the  habitancy  of 
men, — stretches  away  to  the  Red  Sea,  and  far  on  into 
Asia.  And  to  the  west,  frowning  as  though  in  hatred 
of  the  green  Nile  oasis,  is  the  fierce  Libyan  Desert 
that,  with  its  great  mother,  the  Sahara,  holds  so  much 
of  Africa  in  a  cruel  grasp,  and  which  is  as  unlovely 
and  repelling  as  its  sister  of  Arabia  is  bright  and 
beautiful.  Egypt, — the  Egypt  of  life,  and  fertility, 
and  men,  and  history,  and  tradition, — lies,  a  green 
and  smiling  land,  between  these  two  deserts,  as  a  hu 
man  life  lies  between  the  two  great  eternities  that  ex 
tend  before  birth  and  after  death;  as  the  moment  of 
the  Present  lies  between  the  lost  Past  and  the  undis 
covered  Future. 

Egypt  is  the  strangest  land,  the  weirdest  land,  the 
saddest  land,  the  most  mysterious  land,  in  all  the  world. 
It  is  a  land  of  dreams  that  never  came  true,  a  land 
of  memories  and  of  monuments,  a  great  cemetery 
stretching  from  ancient  Ethiopia  to  the  sea,  a  great 
grave,  hundreds  of  miles  long,  in  which  is  buried  per 
haps  as  many  millions  of  humans  as  exist  upon  the 
earth  to-day.  Palaeolithic  and  Neolithic  men  left  here 


92  EGYPT 

their  crude  proofs  of  existence, — their  stone  messages 
to  wondering  posterity, — and  passed  into  death.  The 
ancient,  and  really  unknown,  builders  of  the  Pyramids, 
— those  greatest  monuments  to  human  superstition  and 
egotism, — centuries  ago  gave  back  their  dust  to  fer 
tilize  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  The  countless  kings 
who  ruled  the  land,  the  millions  of  toilers  and  fighters 
who  lived  out  their  few  days  upon  the  banks  of  Egypt's 
great  heart,  have  for  weary  ages  been  mingled  with 
the  soil  and  rocks  and  gases  and  water  from  which 
they  first  were  made.  The  priests,  who  told  their 
grotesque  tales  of  what  they  called  the  truth  of  things, 
have  gone  with  all  their  ignorance,  and  their  bones 
and  flesh  have  also  long  been  dust.  The  conquerors, 
too,  are  gone;  and  the  great  builders,  who  lined  the 
Nile  with  temples  that  they  believed  would  last  coeval 
with  the  world,  and  who  builded  monuments  to  keep 
their  names  and  fames  forever  green  in  the  memories 
of  mankind,  have  so  utterly  passed  from  the  living 
world  that  even  their  names  are  known  only  by  the 
stumbling  guesses  of  pedantic  scientists.  The  temples 
builded  by  the  weary  toils  of  long  generations  of  men 
have  also  died  and  crumbled,  and  many  of  them  are 
utterly  gone,  while  the  poor  few  that  remain  are  sink 
ing  again  into  the  earth,  returning  once  more  to  the 
substance  from  which  they  came,  and  proving  anew 
that  all  things  that  have  form  are  but  manifestations 


EGYPT  93 

of  matter, — manifestations  that  will  hold  temporary 
or  artificial  forms  for  a  few  years  or  a  few  centuries, 
but  which  must  inevitably  return  to  the  elements  from 
which  all  earthly  things  are  made. 

The  great  Nile  valley  is  the  grave  of  a  hundred 
dead  Egypts,  old  and  forgotten  Egypts,  that  existed, 
and  possessed  kings  and  priests  and  rules  and  creeds, 
and  died,  and  were  succeeded  by  newer  Egypts  that 
now  too  are  dead,  that  in  their  time  believed  they 
reared  permanently  upon  the  ruins  of  the  past. 

As  well  as  being  a  great  cemetery  of  men,  Egypt 
is  a  sad  cemetery  of  religions,  philosophies,  and  laws. 
Nearly  all  that  has  been  in  Egypt,  of  any  kind  or 
thing,  is  dead.  Generation  has  succeeded  generation, 
creed  has  succeeded  creed,  nation  has  succeeded  na 
tion,  through  all  those  long  centuries,  and  all  that  has 
resulted  are  the  crumbling  ruins,  the  few  poor  towns, 
and  the  few  miserable  millions  of  ignorant  men  who 
cumber  its  soil  to-day.  Kings  have  gone  with  all  their 
pride,  philosophers  have  borne  their  few  words  of 
wisdom  to  their  graves  with  them,  and  the  priests 
who  posed  as  the  favored  of  God  have  crumbled  as 
completely  as  did  the  dogmas  they  taught.  And  none 
of  them  left  anything  to  make  their  successors  wiser 
or  better.  The  tale  of  the  generations  has  grown  to 
incredible  numbers, — and  we  of  to-day,  "the  heirs  of 
all  the  ages,"  have  a  science  based  upon  a  theory  of 


94  EGYPT 

ions,  philosophies  that  ignore  the  past  and  the  future, 
and  creeds  that  teach  that  the  Creator  of  the  Worlds 
is  a  terrible  monster  who  will  crush  and  torture  the 
poor  beings  of  his  own  creation! 

Tyrant  has  followed  tyrant  in  this  weirdly  beau 
tiful  land  of  Egypt,  where  the  riches  of  nature  and  the 
fruits  of  human  thought  and  toil  have  always  been 
wrested  by  the  powerful  few  from  the  weak  many. 
Ever  has  egotistical  dogmatism  and  ignorant  supersti 
tion  existed  instead  of  proven  knowledge  and  truth. 
Ever  has  much  of  the  sweetness  of  existence  been 
taken  from  men  in  exchange  for  promises  of  paradises 
to  be  found  in  other  worlds,  or  men  have  been  terror 
ized  into  servility,  and  tribute,  and  unnatural  living, 
by  tales  of  the  horrors  that  would  be  inflicted  upon 
them  by  the  hands  of  those  who  builded  the  worlds 
and  planned  the  races  of  men.  And  in  this  hoary  old 
land,  lying  ancient  and  gray  under  its  long  centuries 
of  human  inhabitancy,  the  race  of  mankind,  the  high 
est  form  of  life  known  on  all  the  earth,  is  as  yet  risen 
but  a  little  above  the  beasts.  Women  are  bartered 
like  cattle  and  goods ;  children  are  reared  in  ignorance, 
uncleanliness  and  evil,  and  live  in  squalor,  vice,  and 
want:  and  all  of  learning,  knowledge,  philosophy,  and 
wisdom  that  the  people  have  as  their  inheritance  from 
all  the  centuries  is  a  creed, — a  thing  that  teaches, 
among  other  like  things,  that  the  earth  is  flat.  In- 


EGYPT  95 

capable  of  ruling  themselves,  unable  to  exist  under  the 
heartless  robberies  of  rulers  of  their  own  blood,  their 
land  is  held  by  alien  soldiers,  and,  in  the  sacred  name 
of  God  and  the  more  sacred  name  of  Trade,  is  better 
ruled,  and  yet  ruled  with  more  profit  to  the  rulers, 
than  has  been  done  for  ages.  But  it  remains  a  pros 
trate  land  and  a  groveling  nation,  and  in  Egypt,  even 
more  than  in  other  lands,  it  remains  true  that 

"The  hardest  and  strongest  are  masters  of  time." 

The  great  valley  through  which  the  fresh  waters 
of  the  Nile  run  down  to  the  sea  is  a  land  of  beauty, 
where  the  scent  of  growing  crops  forever  sweetens  the 
soft  airs.  Lowing  herds  browse  in  the  fat  meadows, 
children  play  by  the  waters,  and  across  the  fields  of 
yellow  mustard  and  fragrant  clover  and  rich  grains 
the  wondrous  reflections  from  the  eternal  sands  are 
seen,  as  though  promising  and  proving  that  all  that  is 
is  beautiful  and  good.  The  shimmering  Nile  bears 
in  peace  upon  its  broad  bosom  hundreds  of  boats  that 
sail  up  and  down  the  long  distances  doing  the  work 
of  commerce.  Villages  dot  the  river  bank,  and  nestle 
among  the  fields,  as  though  in  perfect  peace.  And 
ever,  and  always,  the  life-giving  waters  of  the  mighty 
river  flow  on,  dispersing  themselves  through  a  thou 
sand  canals,  raised  to  the  fields  by  the  labors  of  tens 
of  thousands  of  men,  eternally  and  forever  renewing 


96  EGYPT 

the  youth  of  the  soil  and  bringing  riches  to  the  land. 
And  there  is  always  the  sunshine,  or  the  soft  light 
from  the  great  fields  of  stars,  unobscured  by  any  cloud; 
always  the  deserts  with  their  silent  tales  of  infinity; 
always  the  teeming,  living  races  passing  up  and  down 
the  fertile  land  that  feeds  them.  It  would  seem  that 
this  land  of  perpetual  sunshine  and  eternal  summer 
should  be  a  happy  land,  where  all  should  be  wise  and 
free,  and  where  they  should  dwell  in  peace  and  plenty, 
and  in  happiness  and  security;  where  want  should  be 
unknown,  oppression  unheard  of,  ignorance  rare,  and 
injustice  impossible.  But  such  is  not  so.  The  mys 
terious  sphinx  that  gazes  away  so  inscrutably  across 
the  great  valley  has  never  yet  looked  upon  Egypt  at 
a  time  when  men  were  free,  and  when  equality  of  op 
portunity  was  even  dreamed  of  for  all.  The  tall  pyra 
mids,  standing  just  between  the  arid  and  the  fertile 
lands,  were  themselves  builded  veritably  upon  quiver 
ing  hearts,  were  conceived  in  egotism  and  reared  in 
injustice  and  wrong, — reared  by  serfs  who  toiled  out 
their  human  heritage  of  youth  and  manhood  to  try  to 
perpetuate  the  memory  of  some  of  their  own  kind, — 
weak  men  like  themselves,  who,  for  all  their  egotism 
and  their  care,  are  forgotten,  and  who  are  better  for 
gotten.  And,  through  all  the  long  centuries  since  they 
were  builded,  the  pyramids  have  looked  out  over  a 
land  of  slaves. 


EGYPT  97 

Egypt  has  had  many  Gods,  from  those  created  by 
the  Palaeolithic  savages  to  Ra  and  Amen,  Ptah  and 
Hathor,  Osiris  and  Isis,  Jesus  and  Mohammed.    And 
yet,  though  an  inconceivably  long  procession  of  hoary 
centuries  has  passed  into  the  Great  Silence,  who  in 
Egypt  can  answer  those  old  questions  that  men  ask  of 
themselves  and  of  each  other  and  of  the  visible  things 
in  nature,  of  "Whence  came  we?"  "Whither  go  we?" 
"What  is  right?"  "What  is  wrong?"  "What  is  the 
purpose   of   things?"      Old  Egypt,   most   ancient   of 
lands,  hoary  patriarch  among  the  nations,  lies  bound 
in  the  webs  of  its  newest  superstition,  and  it  offers 
the  dreams  of  an  imaginative  caravan  trader  as  true 
answers  to  those  eager  and  urgent  queries.     And  in 
the  name  of  this  camel  driver,  and  the  God  who  is 
believed  to  have  been  his  inspirer  in  war  and  rapine, 
what  evils  have  not  been  committed!     We  know  of 
the  choice  of  the  sword  or  belief  offered  by  Moham 
medans,  of  the  burnings  and  horrors  of  the  Christian 
Inquisition,  of  the  ostracism,  slander  and  hatred  cast 
by   many    religions    against   unbelievers;    and    so,    in 
the  time  of  Ptah  and  Hathor  it  must  have  been  the 
same. 

In  Egypt  no  one  with  power  cares  either  for  the 
present  or  the  coming  generations, — unless  might  be 
counted  a  few  enthusiasts  who  hope  to  supplant  the 
existing  religion  with  another.  What  is  wanted  of 


98  EGYPT 

Egypt  is  dividends,  place,  and  power;  and  the  same 
God  to  whom  army  chaplains  pray  for  success  in  cut 
ting  to  death  armies  of  men  is  supposed  to  be  pleased, 
— for  these  things  are  sought  in  his  name,  and  in  the 
name  of  Civilization. 

Yet  Egypt,  land  of  millions  of  forgotten  dead  as 
it  is,  land  of  continuing  evil  as  it  remains,  does  not 
teach  a  hopeless  lesson.  Rather,  the  lessons  to  be 
learned  amid  the  mysteries  of  its  weird,  dead  past 
are  hopeful  ones.  The  millions  have  gone;  but  that 
is  not  ground  for  sorrow,  for  they  went  in  accordance 
with  immutable  laws;  and,  so  far  as  men  have  been 
able  to  weigh  and  understand  the  immutable  laws  of 
nature,  they  have  found  them  good.  The  millions 
have  gone;  but  the  law  was  that  before  they  went 
they  first  had  to  come;  and  the  law  of  the  going  of 
human  life  need,  therefore,  be  no  more  sorrowful,  nor 
less  right,  than  the  law  of  its  coming.  And  it  is  good 
to  know  that  all  of  these  teeming  millions  consisted  in 
the  first  instance  and  principle  of  individuals.  And  it 
is  good  to  think  that  the  God,  or  Gods,  or  Supreme 
Power,  that  moves  all  the  earths  and  planets  and  suns 
in  such  perfect  harmony,  that  causes  the  seasons  to 
come  and  go  with  such  supreme  justice,  has  also  caused, 
and  allowed,  little  entities  of  individuals  to  come  and 
go,  to  be  born  and  to  die  (for  if  one  is  right  so  must 
the  other  also  inevitably  be  right),  and  to  live,  and 


EGYPT  99 

move,  and  love,  and  strive,  and  accomplish,  in  accord 
ance  with  the  same  laws  that  hold  the  great  sun  sus 
pended  so  perfectly  in  the  great  systems  of  suns. 

In  the  hundred  dead  Egypts  men  oppressed  men; 
the  inhumanity  of  man  to  man  broke  millions  of  hu 
man  hearts;  the  accidents  of  birth  into  a  world  where 
unnatural  inheritances  were  looked  upon  as  being  the 
law  of  God  ruined  the  lives  of  myriads;  vain  warriors 
led  multitudes  to  death,  so  that  they,  the  leaders, 
might  have  glory  and  wealth ;  priests,  and  kings,  in  the 
name  of  the  Gods  who  were  believed  to  be  their  part 
ners,  ruled  the  lives  of  mankind.  But  these  things,  too, 
seem  to  have  been  in  accord  with  the  laws  that  nature 
has  written  under  the  name  of  evolution.  And  the  law 
was  twofold;  the  oppression,  as  applied  by  and  to  indi 
viduals,  ceased;  and  the  oppressors  and  the  oppressed 
passed  on  out  of  Egypt,  and  out  of  life,  in  harmonious 
accord  with  the  great  law  that  has  not  changed  with 
the  dynasties  and  creeds, — that  functions  throughout 
time,  no  matter  what  king  rules,  or  what  man  or 
woman  men  may  choose  to  associate  with  God  as  co- 
rulers  of  all  the  countless  worlds.  And  as  the  evils  of 
the  ancient  and  forgotten  Egypts  have  ceased,  so  will 
the  evils  of  the  Egypt  and  of  the  world  of  our  time 
cease.  Already,  in  this  better  age  of  ours,  priests  and 
rulers,  no  matter  how  they  are  called,  work  for  human 
ity  instead  of  making  humanity  work  for  them.  And 


ioo  EGYPT 

in  some  other  time  and  place  we  may  learn  that  in  their 
deeper  plans  the  evils  we  cavil  against  were  not  evils 
at  all,  that  there  are  no  evils,  and  that  evil  cannot  exist 
in  such  a  perfect  place  as  is  this  universe  where  men 
are  allowed  to  be.  Even  now, — there  being  no  longer 
an  Inquisition, — men  have  dared  to  analogically  rea 
son  that  if  evil  exists  it  must  have  been  the  design  of 
the  same  God  or  Power  that  created  good,  and  de 
signed  the  universe.  So  Egypt  is  a  land  of  hope, — 
for  we  dare  to  hope  that  the  laws  of  nature  or  of  God 
are  as  good  as  they  are  immutable.  And  as  this  an 
cient  father  of  lands  is  studied  more  deeply,  the  grim- 
ness  vanishes  from  its  brow  and  the  shadows  fade 
from  its  face,  and  we  find  that  its  history  is  as  encour 
aging  as  its  Nile  fields  are  green. 

But,  even  if  we  learn  a  few  hopeful  things  from 
Egypt,  there  are  many  other  things  about  which  we 
may  not  learn.  And  yet  why  grieve,  or  why  blame 
Egypt?  Egypt  knows  not  the  answers  to  the  great, 
wistful  questions  of  human  beings,  but  in  what  newer 
or  better  land  may  the  answers  be  found?  Where  may 
we  receive  proofs  instead  of  assertions?  But  if  we. 
may  not  know  the  truth  of  the  great  questions,  we  may 
know  the  truth  of  some  lesser  ones,  and  this  little  of 
truth  may  be  as  priceless  as  would  be  that  of  the 
greater  things.  We  know  that  our  little  spans  of  life 
are  cast  in  a  wondrously  beautiful  world,  that  the  sun- 


EGYPT  10 1 

light  falls  in  gladness  upon  the  fair  face  of  an  earth 
whose  beauty  is  beyond  human  words  to  tell  or  human 
understanding  to  appreciate,  that  the  seas  sing  their 
endless  songs  in  harmony,  that  the  tides  rise  and  fall, 
and  the  earth  revolves,  and  the  great  systems  of 
worlds  run  their  mighty  courses,  all  in  accordance  with 
laws  that  are  perfect,  and  true,  and  inevitably  and 
eternally  just  and  right.  And  by  knowing  these  few 
things, — and  that  greater  truth  that  within  each  hu 
man  individual  is  a  something,  not  of  his  own  creation, 
which  impels  him  ever  onward  through  evil  to  good, 
— we  can  conceive  that,  perhaps,  what  we  call  evil  in 
Egypt,  or  in  any  other  place,  is  in  reality  good  in  the 
long  plans  of  nature,  and  as  strictly  in  accordance  with 
the  plans  and  laws  of  all  things  as  are  the  movements 
of  the  stars.  And  we  can  also  conceive  that  whatever 
is  the  truth  about  the  greater  mysteries  will  prove  to 
be  as  good  and  as  just  as  all  other  truths,  and  that 
whatever  will  befall  will  surely  be  the  thing  that 
should  befall.  We  shall  find  that  whatever  will  be 
will  inevitably  be,  and  we  may  find  that  whatever  will 
be  will  be  right. 

As  I  write  the  sun, — the  great  life-giver  of  the 
earth  and  the  solar  system,  the  worshipped  god  of  a 
thousand  nations,  the  Golden  Horus  of  the  Ancient 
Egyptians, — is  sinking  into  mysterious  Libya,  the  west- 


102  EGYPT 

ern  sky  is  diffused  and  glorified  with  gold  and  saffron, 
and  the  shades  of  night  are  creeping  over  the  silent 
bosom  of  the  desert  toward  the  Nile, — to  bring  relief 
to  the  myriad  toilers  who  have  wrought  all  the  long 
day  in  the  labors  that  must  always  be  done  to  keep  the 
desert  back  and  to  provide  for  the  life  that  is  here. 
In  the  deserts  the  Bedouins  and  Bishareen  will  halt 
their  caravans  and  build  their  camps  for  the  night; 
the  felucca  sails  will  be  lowered  from  the  tall  masts  of 
the  multitudes  of  boats  that  sail  upon  the  broad  bosom 
of  the  great  river,  and  the  boatmen  too  will  rest;  and 
from  the  villages  along  the  shore  the  smoke  rising  in 
the  gathering  gloom  tells  of  firesides  where  are  being 
prepared  the  evening  meals  that  tired  and  hungry  ones 
will  have.  The  faces  of  the  devout  are  now  turned 
toward  Mecca, — away  from  that  golden  mystery  and 
beauty  that  the  sun  has  placed  in  the  west, — to  recite 
their  evening  prayers.  A  cool  wind  blows  out  of 
Libya,  caresses  the  river  as  it  passes,  and  goes  on  to 
kiss  the  golden  Arabian  sands;  a  delicious  freshness 
follows  the  heat  of  the  day,  as  though  to  bless  the 
time  of  passing  from  labor  to  refreshment,  and  the 
night  has  come,  and  the  toils  of  the  day  are  done.  So 
sank  the  sun  when  wild  men  dwelt  in  the  Nile-land; 
so  it  sank  in  the  time  of  the  great  Rameses,  who  prayed 
to  it,  and  worshipped  it,  and  gave  it  advice,  and  called 
himself  its  son;  so  it  sank,  in  the  same  mystery  and 


EGYPT  103 

beauty,  when  the  Ethiopians,  the  Persians,  the  Greeks, 
the  Romans,  and  all  the  other  conquerors,  overran  and 
took  captive  the  land.  When  the  first  Christians  came, 
then  spreading  the  creed  that  the  nature  of  man  is  evil, 
the  same  perfect  golden  glow  lit  up  the  wide  west  in 
magic  and  glory,  and  stood,  then  as  now,  as  a  living 
proof  of  the  complete  perfection  of  all  the  things  that 
nature  does.  And  when  fanatic  hordes  came  down  upon 
the  land  from  Irak,  offering  choice  between  a  new  creed 
and  the  sword,  how  many  of  them  saw  that  across  the 
desert  in  the  west,  beyond  Libya, — over  the  side  of  the 
world, — a  miracle  took  place  each  evening  at  the  time 
that  divides  the  day  from  the  night, — a  miracle  greater 
than  all  the  legerdemain  chronicled  in  their  holy  book 
that  they  were  shedding  human  blood  to  install?  And 
it  is  a  miracle  that  has  not  ceased,  and  that  is  as 
magical  to-day  as  it  was  at  its  first  occurrence. 
For  the  sun  is  going  down.  The  great  earth, 
swung  by  immutable  law  in  space,  has  again  re 
volved  in  its  ceaseless  turning  toward  the  east,  and 
its  face  once  more  turns  outward  from  the  sun.  Why 
talk  of  gods  who  kill  in  anger,  of  gods  who  cast  sweet 
babes  to  consuming  fires,  of  gods  hungry  for  sacrifices 
of  blood  or  happiness,  of  gods  commanding  the  slaugh 
ter  of  ignorant  unbelievers,  of  gods  who  relegate  their 
powers  and  authority  to  poor  conceited  men,  when 
always  and  surely  the  sundown  time  proves  anew  that 


104  EGYPT 

all  the  universe  moves  in  accordance  with  changeless 
laws  of  infinite  justice,  perfect  right,  and  sublime 
beauty,  and  which,  in  their  full  accomplishment,  cannot 
be  changed  by  a  minute  nor  an  iota  nor  a  jot  nor  a 
tittle  by  all  the  marabouts  and  shamans  and  scientists 
and  philosophers  and  prophets  and  mahdis  who  have 
dwelt  in  Egypt  or  in  the  world  since  the  Nile  valley 
first  rose  above  the  deep  and  the  salt  waters  of  its 
ancient  fiord  fell  back  into  the  sea ! 

But  the  sun  has  gone,  tired  Egypt  sleeps  in  peace, 
and  the  sands  of  the  desert,  and  the  stars  that  gaze 
down  upon  them,  fret  not  the  night  with  thoughts  of 
the  creeds  of  men.  And,  following  the  last  golden 
haze  left  by  the  sun,  the  moon  has  come, — another 
promise  to  humanity,  hung  in  the  sky! 

We  have  gone  from  Egypt.  But  as  the  evening 
shadows  lengthen  along  the  shores  of  that  same  sea 
that  flows  by  the  old  Nile-land,  we  like  to  gaze  away 
toward  Africa,  and  send  our  memories  wandering  back, 
past  the  towering  Alps  and  the  stately  Apennines, 
across  weary  old  Italy,  down  by  the  shining  isles  of 
Greece,  to  that  mysterious,  low-lying  shore  against 
which  have  beaten  many  of  the  greatest  waves  of  hu 
man  history.  And  there  lies  Egypt,  bathed  in  eternal 
sunlight,  blessed  by  eternal  summer,  resting  between  its 
enfolding  deserts  as  a  babe  rests  between  the  strong, 
safe  arms  of  one  to  whom  it  is  the  best  loved  thing  on 
earth. 


THAT  MYSTERIOUS,  LOW-LYING  SHORE  AGAINST  WHICH  HAVE  BEATEN 
MANY  OF  THE  GREATEST  WAVES  OF  HUMAN  HISTORY 


VI 
SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES 


"What  will  you  have?"  asks  God.     "Pay  for  it  and  take  it.' 


T7OR  one  to  say  that  he  is  a  Socialist  is  not  neces 
sarily  to  say  that  he  is  opposed  to  all  existing 
social  conditions,  that  he  advocates  giving  the  goods 
of  the  earth  to  those  who  have  neither  earned  nor 
merited  them,  or  that  he  would  hang  the  unfit  and  the 
incapable  among  men  as  burdens  about  the  necks  of 
the  strong  and  the  capable.  It  is  true  that  there  are 
many  specious  social  doctrines  being  preached  which 
advocate  just  those  things,  but  as  they  are  opposed 
to  the  very  primal  laws  of  nature  they  will  never 
stand  the  test  of  experience,  and  not  much  is  to  be 
feared  from  them.  If  we  should  define  a  Socialist  as 
one  who  strives  to  better  the  condition  of  humanity 
we  should  find  that  nearly  all  earnest,  serious  men, — 
whether  captains  of  industry,  teachers  of  creeds,  or 
writers  of  essays, — are  Socialists.  Each  one  follows 
to  a  greater  or  less  degree  the  course  that  he  believes 
will  aid  the  great  mass  of  humanity  in  its  toilsome 
march:  and  each  one,  if  he  stops  to  sound  and  prove 
his  plan  and  his  theories,  finds  many  flaws  in  them. 

107 


io8        SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES 

The  chiefest  obstacle  to  the  betterment  of  the  condition 
of  humanity  is  humanity  itself;  the  unknown  and  un- 
reckonable  quantity  in  all  projects  for  the  advancement 
of  mankind  is  human  nature.  We  can  define  Socialism, 
or  Altruism,  or  whatever  name  we  choose  to  call  our 
system:  we  may  put  a  fraction  of  it  into  practice: 
and  then  we  come  face  to  face  with  the  great  truth  that 
the  evolution  which  itself  is  carrying  humanity  for 
ward  cannot  be  much  hastened  by  the  efforts  of  little 
human  microbes.  But  we  find  a  recompense  for  that 
sad  fact  in  the  other  fact  that  neither  can  men  much 
retard  evolution. 

I  believe  in  a  kind  of  Socialism  that  I  think  is 
based  upon  nature, — upon  the  same  idea  expressed 
by  Emerson  when  he  wrote:  "What  will  you  have?" 
asks  God.  "Pay  for  it  and  take  it."  Which  is  to  say 
that  I  believe  the  great  and  boundless  and  inexhaus 
tible  wealth  of  the  earth  is  primarily  the  property  of 
all  mankind,  and  that  the  only  divisions  of  this  wealth, 
the  only  segregations  of  any  part  of  it  to  individual 
possession,  except  to  children,  and  to  youth  making 
preparation  for  usefulness,  should  be  in  cases  where 
the  recipient  had  rendered  services  to  his  kind  that 
entitled  him  to  enjoy  what  came  into  his  possession. 
I  believe  he  is  entitled  to  enjoy  and  properly  admin 
ister  all  that  he  has  merited,  even  if  that  be  a  kingdom; 
and  I  think  he  is  not  entitled  to  enjoy  anything  he  has 


SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES        109 

not  at  some  time  merited, — not  even  a  loaf  of  bread. 
And  here  I  come  into  opposition  with  a  class  of  men 
who  have  abused  the  word  Socialism,  who  want  some 
thing  for  nothing,  or  at  best  want  rewards  far  beyond 
any  services  they  have  rendered  to  their  race  or  gen 
eration.  There  is  a  question  hidden  under  all  this 
that  is  too  deep  for  me, — the  question  of  the  equal 
rights  of  humans.  As  all  human  beings  come  into  the 
world  without  their  own  consent  it  may  be  that  each  one 
has  inherent  rights  in  the  world  as  great  as  those  of 
any  other, — that  the  slothful  have  the  same  rights  to 
enjoy  the  wealth  of  the  world  as  have  the  toilers. 
All  this  may  be,  but  I  do  not  believe  it,  although  I  be 
lieve  they  should  have  the  same  right  to  the  chance  of 
earning  the  rewards.  And  anyhow,  as  a  necessary 
preliminary  step  to  the  more  perfect  social  condition 
that  the  future  holds,  merit,  effort  and  accomplishment 
will,  as  now,  be  rewarded  above  the  rewards  won  or 
received  by  those  who  were  merely  born,  who  merely 
live,  merely  reproduce,  and  merely  die. 

In  a  more  perfect  social  condition,  which  we  might 
achieve  in  a  thousand  years  if  all  worked  to  that  end, 
no  one  will  be  allowed  to  inherit  any  title,  or  special 
privilege,  or  land,  or  wealth,  or  advantage  of  any 
kind;  and  the  right  will  be  recognized  for  every  human 
being  to  win  and  enjoy  just  as  much  of  the  bountiful 
wealth  of  nature  as  he  will  deserve,  so  long*  as  he 


no       SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES 

does  not  interfere  with  the  rights  of  others.  And 
each  one,  too,  will  be  born  with  the  right  of  being 
fitted  to  the  fullest  extent  to  develop  his  individuality, 
to  win,  and  to  enjoy,  his  share  of  the  enjoyments  and 
the  goods  of  the  earth.  It  seems  to  me  that  that  is 
the  Socialism  of  nature,  and  that  it  can  be  inferentially 
determined  by  appealing  to  nature.  For  even  now,  in 
spite  of  title  deeds  and  barbarous  laws  of  inheritance, 
those  who  will  can  claim  and  use  much  of  the  beauty  of 
the  world,  and  each  one  can  actually  have  just  that 
much  that  he  can  enjoy.  And  so  the  properties  which 
I  describe  are  socialistic  estates,  they  belong  to  all 
who  can  enjoy  them,  and  so,  in  a  sense,  they  also  be 
long  to  me.  My  titles  of  possession  are  founded 
neither  upon  purchase,  grant,  gift,  confiscation,  nor 
inheritance,  but  upon  my  ability  to  appreciate  and  en 
joy  them.  And  each  one,  no  matter  in  what  part  of 
the  wide  world  he  finds  himself,  can  enjoy  the  same 
kind  of  ownership  in  estates  as  beautiful  as  the  ones 
of  which  I  write,  for  nature  has  not  been  partial  in 
the  distribution  of  beauty.  And  so,  in  describing  the 
estates  that  in  one  sense  are  mine,  I  think  I  indicate 
to  others  the  memory,  and  I  hope  a  renewed  and 
increased  enjoyment,  of  estates  that  in  the  same  sense 
are  theirs. 

My  estates  of  this  kind  are  situated  in  many  coun 
tries  and  they  embrace  nearly  all  classes  of  estates  that 


SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES        in 

men  have  ever  owned.  The  ones  which  I  have  last 
visited  are  usually  those  that  are  best  loved,  so  just 
now  my  great  woodland  estate  in  Germany  is  much 
in  my  mind,  for  it  is  but  a  few  days  since  I  took  my 
departure  from  it. 

My  German  estate  is  called  the  Taunus  Forest, 
and  it  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  properties  to  which 
I  have  yet  acquired  a  sentimental  title.  It  spreads  in 
long  miles  of  loveliness  over  hills  whose  beauty  is 
more  appreciated  because  they  lie  in  a  region  that 
does  not  possess  much  else  of  beauty.  And  in  addition 
to  the  dividends  of  enjoyment  this  forest  pays  to  me 
and  my  fellow  owners,  it  is  the  only  near  retreat  I 
know  from  the  unlovely  self-content  of  a  people  who, 
— proclaiming  that  God  is  with  them, — line  their  land 
with  statues  of  warriors.  I  first  came  into  possession 
of  this  property  on  a  day  when  old  Winter,  in  a  playful 
mood,  was  contending  for  supremacy  with  the  ad 
vancing  Spring.  I  walked  deep  into  the  forest,  which 
was  silent  save  for  the  soughing  of  a  gentle  wind  in 
the  leafless  treetops.  But  old  Winter  saw  me,  and  as 
a  welcome  to  the  new  owner  he  pelted  me  with  snow, 
he  dropped  a  few  small  hailstones  upon  me,  and  he  sent 
some  of  his  younger  winds  to  skurry  about  me  and 
make  believe  to  frighten  me.  But  he  knew  that  I 
love  winters  as  well  as  forests  and  knew  that  he  and 
his  winds  were  but  playing.  And  he  soon  drew  away 


ii2        SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES 

on  his  northward  march  and  gave  way  for  Spring, 
who  came  to  take  charge  of  my  estate  for  me.  I 
watched  her  day  by  day  as  she  wrought  her  marvels. 
She  touched  the  branches  of  the  mighty  trees, — some 
of  which  have  stood  in  serenity  while  many  genera 
tions  of  men  fretted  out  their  troubled  lives, — and 
buds  burst  forth,  and  a  few  early  blossoms  ventured 
out,  and  birds  began  to  come  up  from  the  South  and 
make  the  fastnesses  ring  with  song.  And  as  day 
followed  day  so  did  the  work  of  Spring  proceed,  and 
it  was  not  long  until  all  the  great  forest  burst  forth 
into  full  leaf,  and  flowers  hung  heavy  and  fragrant, 
and  soft  mosses  and  grasses  spread  themselves  as 
carpets,  and  busy  ants  and  bees  went  joyously  about 
their  labors,  and  older  owners  of  the  estate,  with 
better  titles  than  mine,  began  to  send  their  calls  across 
the  leafy  distances  in  sweeter  tones  than  any  diva  has 
ever  yet  enunciated, — for  the  cuckoos  had  come  back 
to  their  own.  Those  mahatmas  of  the  woodland 
never  allowed  me  to  see  them,  but  they  cheered  my 
walks  and  rides  with  their  sweet  calls  that  told  me 
they  were  not  envious  or  jealous  that  I  had  come  to 
be  a  co-owner  with  them  in  their  splendid  estate.  Some 
poet  once  wrote  his  doubt  of  the  real  existence  of 
cuckoos,  saying  he  believed  them  to  be  incorporeal 
voices  floating  in  the  air.  But  I  believed  my  cuckoos 


SOME    SOCIALISTIC   ESTATES        113 

to  have  bodies  and  souls  as  well  as  voices,  and  I 
loved  them  all  the  better  because  I  believed  it. 

Diaz  of  Barbison  owned  some  forests  much  like 
this  one  of  Taunus,  and  he  made  the  world  a  little 
richer  by  trying  to  depict  some  of  their  beauties  upon 
canvas.  Of  course  he  failed,  as  all  painters  have  al 
ways  failed:  but  his  failure  should  have  contained' 
no  sting,  for  he  knew,  and  the  forests  knew,  that  all 
he  could  hope  to  do  was  to  depict  a  little  of  the  real 
beauty  he  saw,  to  haltingly  imitate  in  a  small  degree 
the  magnificence  and  splendor  of  his  models.  The 
Taunus  suggests  Diaz  throughout.  The  sunlight  falls 
through  the  trees  and  to  the  grassy  carpets  in  visible, 
and  it  seems  almost  material,  rays.  The  mystery  that 
Diaz  loved  is  there,  and  as  one  strives  to  gaze  deep 
into  the  recesses  his  vision  is  stopped  by  the  semi- 
aureate  gloom,  by  the  half-darkness  that  contains 
nothing  to  fear,  that  is  found  in  the  pictures  of  Diaz. 
The  forest  is  consistent,  and  none  of  the  fairy-like 
shadows,  the  supermundane  lights  and  shades  and  the 
evanescent  mists  of  Corot  are  there;  but  there  are 
some  suggestions  of  Ruysdaal  and  Hobbema,  who, 
after  all,  were  the  elder  brethren  of  Diaz. 

There  must  always  have  been  forests  on  the  Tau 
nus  Hills,  and  long  ago,  when  the  Goths  and  Alle- 
manni  roamed  this  region,  they  encamped  in  them, 
and  talked  to  the  trees,  and  wove  legends  about  them. 


n4        SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES 

and  took  something  of  good  from  them  before  they 
went  on  to  carve  their  bloody  roadways  across  Eu 
rope.  And  those  who  came  after  them,  even  until 
now,  while  often  being  at  war  and  dealing  in  savagery, 
have  always  had  the  saving  grace  in  all  their  bar 
barism  of  loving  the  forests  and  conserving  them. 
Old  oaks  stand  in  the  Taunus  that  have  seen  many 
generations  of  humans  pass  from  their  cradles  to 
their  graves,  that  have  seen  petty  ruler  after  petty 
ruler  establish  what  each  believed  was  ownership  and 
sway  over  this  land, — and  then  go  on  to  those  soon- 
forgotten  graves  from  which  no  one  wanted  them 
recalled.  Some  of  those  old  rulers,  arrogating  to 
themselves  the  rights  of  God,  held  men  in  subjection: 
and  indeed  it  is  not  long  since  serfdom  withdrew  its 
devil  face  from  Germany.  But  little  by  little  the 
socialism  of  nature  prevailed,  and  a  few  rights  have 
been  given  to  the  people, — not  all  their  rights,  of 
course,  for  Germany,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  is  still 
uncivilized,  and  its  people,  like  other  peoples,  have 
not  yet  come  into  their  own.  They  can  still  be  called 
to  wars  not  of  their  own  making  or  liking,  they  can 
be  taxed  and  ruled  without  their  own  consent,  they 
must  bow  to  the  accidents  of  birth  and  the  man-made 
laws  of  caste.  But  even  so,  in  what  country  shall 
we  look  for  better  conditions?  But  throughout 
the  centuries  of  wrong  which  have  passed  over  its 


THE  SUNLIGHT  FALLS  THROUGH  THE  TREES 


SOME  SOCIALISTIC  ESTATES         115 

human  tenants,  the  forest  continued  in  its  loveliness, 
its  great  old  oaks  and  beeches  and  birches  and  elms 
and  the  mysteriously  whispering  pines  kept  on  grow 
ing  for  all  those  who  should  be  able  to  appreciate 
them:  cuckoos,  too  wise  to  contend  the  unjust  claims 
of  the  men  who  ruled  because  of  the  accidents  of  birth 
and  not  because  they  were  chosen  by  the  ruled,  sang 
then  as  now  and  ignored  them ;  the  busy  ants  continued 
about  their  work  of  making  soil  to  produce  food 
for  generations  yet  unborn:  the  butterflies  reveled  in 
the  sunshine,  troubling  not  about  the  evils  of  the  world ; 
the  wild-flowers  reared  their  heads  in  adoration,  and 
the  sunlight  fell  in  glory  upon  the  great  tree-bolls,  as 
they  all  had  ever  done  and  will  ever  do.  And  from 
among  the  myriad  voices  of  the  creatures  of  the  forest, 
indeed  as  an  undertone  in  every  voice,  there  comes  the 
statement  that  the  condition  of  mankind  does  not  much 
differ  from  the  condition  of  nature's  other  creatures, 
and  despite  the  unjust  laws  and  evil  creeds  against 
which  men  must  struggle,  each  man  finds  in  life  more 
joy  than  sorrow,  more  good  than  bad.  And  this  is  a 
good  lesson  to  learn,  whether  we  learn  it  from  men  or 
from  trees. 

I  think  the  forest  is  a  little  annoyed  by  the  many 
guardians  its  present  rulers  install  over  it.  But  when  I 
first  followed  old  Winter  into  its  recesses  the  German 
law-enforcers  troubled  not,  and  I  was  free  to  walk 


n6        SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES 

upon  the  grasses  and  mosses,  and  gather  the  first  peep 
ing  wild-flowers  if  I  would,  and  make  free  use  of  my 
estate.  Later,  like  the  French  with  Lorraine,  while 
still  calling  the  country  mine,  I  had  to  surrender  it 
into  the  iron  hands  of  Germany.  The  forest  lost  none 
of  its  majesty  and  grandeur,  the  cathedral  aisles  of 
great  trees  were  as  imposing  and  as  impressive  as 
ever,  the  birds  twittered  and  sang  as  before,  and  my 
friends  the  cuckoos  continued  to  haunt  the  distances 
with  their  sweet,  mysterious  calls.  But  with  the  full 
coming  of  Spring  and  the  advent  of  the  helmeted 
representatives  of  the  power  of  the  law,  came  also 
droves  of  unsmiling  humans,  to  take  what  they  be 
lieved  were  holidays, — and  it  was  time  to  go. 

I  left  the  Taunus  once  before  the  Spring  had  fully 
wrought  its  marvels,  and  followed  old  Winter  farther 
on  his  northward  retreat.  I  overtook  him  near  that 
ugly  creation  of  men  marked  down  on  maps  as  Vilna, 
and  followed  him  to  the  Neva, — and  he  made  a  sul 
len,  surly  and  unwilling  retreat,  and  did  not  indulge  in 
any  of  the  playfulness  he  had  exhibited  at  the  Taunus. 
He  frowned  continually,  and  with  black  clouds  and 
rumbling  thunder  and  spiteful  snow-squalls  tried  to 
frighten  Spring  back  to  the  sunnier  lands  that  love 
her  better.  And  the  country  and  the  forests  seemed 
to  have  more  kinship  and  sympathy  with  Winter  than 
with  Spring.  The  very  birches,  which  in  other  coun- 


SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES        117 

tries  are  graceful  and  beautiful,  in  Russia  seem  surly, 
misshapen  and  out  of  tune  with  nature.  The  pines 
do  not  nod  and  whisper  in  the  confiding  way  of  the 
pines  of  other  lands,  but  frown  upon  the  world  as 
though  they  hate  all  the  things  it  contains.  And  the 
suggestions  of  the  human  life  of  those  dark  forests 
are  not  pleasant.  Gaunt,  squalid,  dull,  seemingly  al 
most  insensate  creatures,  wrapped  in  great  unclean 
skins  and  furs,  came  out  of  the  fastnesses  and  stolidly 
gazed  at  us.  We  passed  clearings  where  little  wooden 
huts,  like  pig-stys,  were  the  homes  of  half-alive  mem 
bers  of  that  great  troubled  nation  that  in  its  efforts  to 
free  itself  from  the  ills  it  knows  is  almost  certain  to 
rush  headlong  into  abysses  of  even  greater  evil. 

All  the  books  for  the  instruction  of  youth  preach 
the  gospel  of  striving  after  greatness.  And  there  are 
libraries  of  books  which  men  have  written  to  say  that 
Napoleon  was  great,  and  to  point  out  his  greatnesses 
to  us.  There  are  memories  and  suggestions  of  Na 
poleon  in  these  dark  Russian  forests,  for  to  pay  a 
grudge,  to  gratify  a  whim,  and  to  feed  his  insatiable 
ambition,  he  led  a  great  army  of  human  beings, — each 
with  as  good  a  right  to  live  and  enjoy  God's  world  as 
he  himself  had, — into  those  forbidding  fastnesses  to 
die.  Old  Winter  did  not  content  himself  with  frown 
ing  upon  that  unhappy  horde,  but  he  came  down  upon 
them,  and  loosed  his  storms  upon  them,  and  froze 


n8        SOME    SOCIALISTIC   ESTATES 

them  and  killed  them  and  lined  the  forests  and  the 
roads  with  their  emaciated  corpses.  Napoleon's  re 
treat  from  Moscow  was  along  a  terrible  Road  of 
Hell,  lined  with  the  dead  and  dying  bodies  of  men 
who  no  more  forever  should  see  children  and  wives 
and  sweethearts  and  the  old  parents  at  home.  Dead, 
frozen  hands  protruding  by  hundreds  and  thousands 
from  the  drifting  snows  should  have  served  as  ques 
tion  marks  to  ask  of  Napoleon,  and  of  the  future,  as 
to  whether  success  in  warfare  really  constitutes  great 
ness. 

In  the  present  uncivilized  state  of  the  world  war 
sometimes  seems  necessary,  and  it  is  sometimes  true 
that  for  a  great  idea  or  for  the  protection  of  some 
great  and  inalienable  right  men  must  go  in  hordes  to 
take  the  lives  of  their  fellow  humans.  But  if  one 
will  read  the  real  truth,  and  face  the  real  facts  about 
wars,  he  will  find  that  nine  out  of  every  ten  is  made 
to  win  loot  of  some  kind  or  other, — to  win  land,  or 
more  chances  for  trade,  or  the  power  of  ruling  over 
more  peoples.  Some  good  came  from  the  fact  that 
Napoleon  lived  in  the  world,  for  he  struck  some  old 
shackles  from  the  limbs  of  mankind.  But  there  is  no 
city  in  the  world  to-day  that  contains  as  many  human 
beings  as  the  wars  of  Napoleon  killed.  His  cannon 
and  the  cannon  of  those  who  contended  with  him  de 
voured  the  flower  of  the  youth  of  Europe,  he  made 


SOME    SOCIALISTIC   ESTATES        119 

humans  into  corpses  faster  than  graves  could  be  dug 
in  which  to  bury  them,  and  because  of  him  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  human  souls  were  sent  into  the 
Great  Mystery,  prematurely  severed  from  their  bodies, 
whose  brains  died  filled  with  black  hatred,  whose  lips 
grew  cold  while  uttering  curses  against  their  fellow 
atoms,  whose  hearts  stopped  beating  while  they  were 
yet  filled  with  the  red  lust  for  human  blood. 

So  in  my  acquisition  of  sentimental  possessions  I 
declined  to  become  in  any  degree  an  owner  of  the 
Russian  forests.  And  when  I  returned  to  the  Taunus 
and  its  happy  birds  I  thought  more  and  more  of  how 
much  better  and  happier  mankind  will  be  when  wars 
cease.  And  I  rejoiced  that  there  have  not  been  many 
men  as  great  as  Napoleon  in  the  cruel  art  of  warfare. 

From  the  Taunus  we  betook  ourselves  to  another 
property  over  whose  possession  pigmy  kings  have 
fought  great  battles  and  spilled  much  human  blood, 
yet  which  we  acquired  without  money  and  without 
price,  for  we  did  not  want  to  rule  it.  It  was  the 
Rhine  at  Basle.  The  Rhine  is  not  a  fortunate  river, 
as  it  has  to  run  much  of  its  course  past  ugly  towns 
built  of  stucco  and  imitation  stones,  and  past  hillsides 
and  through  plains  spoiled  with  monstrous,  smoke- 
belching  factories.  But  at  Basle,  before  it  has  en 
tered  the  period  of  its  degradation,  it  ripples,  and 
sings,  and  shouts  joyous  messages  to  those  who  love 


120       SOME    SOCIALISTIC   ESTATES 

it.  And  it  is  at  Basle  that  I  and  my  fellow  Socialists 
of  Appreciation  count  it  as  among  our  best  possessions, 
for  at  Basle  it  is  a  happy  river.  It  knows  it  has  for 
ever  left  the  picturesque  highlands  of  its  youth,  that 
it  is  doomed  to  roll  its  way  through  the  iron  and  ugly 
so-called  civilization  of  modernity,  whose  units  of 
success  are  coming  to  be  coins, — but  it  knows,  too, 
that  neither  modern  industrial  lunacy  nor  men  can 
hold  it,  and  that  it  is  destined  to  go  on  until  it  freely 
mixes  its  waters  with  the  free  waters  of  the  Seven 
Seas,  where  it  can  leap  and  toss  and  sing  until  the 
end  of  time.  And  the  songs  it  sings  at  Basle  were 
still  in  our  ears  as  we  set  out  for  another  of  our  great 
estates,  which  is  hidden  away  in  the  quiet  heart  of 
Switzerland. 

Our  Swiss  possessions  contain  forests,  and  glitter 
ing  lakes,  and  green-clad  mountains  as  well  as  other 
mountains  that  wear  as  crowns  the  pure  white  of 
eternal  peace.  The  forest  is  wilder  than  the  Taunus 
but  it  is  no  less  beautiful.  It,  too,  contains  verdant 
cathedrals  and  long  vaulted  aisles, — where  the  dying 
art  of  architecture  might  be  studied  anew.  And  within 
its  cool  recesses  there  is  a  peace  that  is  not  known  in 
the  busy  human  hives  where  a  few  think  they  are 
rich  and  myriads  know  they  are  poor. 

In  such  forests  we  find  out  how  ignorant  we  are. 
I  sat  this  morning  and  watched  a  butterfly,  whose 


SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES        121 

name  I  do  not  know,  do  something  that  in  my  ignor 
ance  I  did  not  before  know  was  done  by  butterflies, 
which  is  to  gather  nectar.  He  was  a  beautiful  crea 
ture,  this  co-owner  with  me  in  this  great  estate,  and 
his  wings  were  two  fans,  more  exquisitely  shaped 
than  any  ever  wrought  by  an  artist,  and  painted  in 
colors  that  would  outvie  the  lily.  When  the  light  fell 
upon  his  ceaselessly  moving  wings  a  miniature  rainbow 
was  depicted  upon  them  and  this  phenomenon  was 
repeated  again  and  again  as  he  worked, — as  though 
to  cry  shame  to  the  sorry  crews  who  jumble  paints 
together  and  call  the  results  things  equal  to  nature  in 
beauty.  Also  to  gather  pollen  and  sip  nectar  other 
insects  came,  but,  being  ignorant  of  Darwin's  theory 
of  the  natural  warfare  of  species,  they  did  not  molest 
each  other.  They  were  wise  beyond  anxious  Mal- 
thus  and  the  avaricious  ones  among  men,  for 
they  knew  that  rich  and  infinite  nature  is  prod 
igally  potential  to  support  all  of  its  creatures  and 
supply  all  the  natural  needs  and  just  desires  of  their 
bodies  and  their  souls, — if  only  the  creatures  will  es 
cape  from  ignorance  and  cease  from  blinding  them 
selves  with  folly.  My  butterfly  might  have  gleaned 
nectar  throughout  the  livelong,  sunny  day,  and  all  the 
days  to  come  after  in  his  life,  and  stored  it  up  in  quan 
tities  beyond  what  hundreds  of  his  kind  could  ever 
use,  and  fretted  his  soul  as  to  how  best  he  could  pro- 


122        SOME    SOCIALISTIC   ESTATES 

tect  it  and  leave  it  as  an  unearned  inheritance  to 
his  children,  and  by  it  gain  for  them  special  privileges 
and  advantages.  But  he  was  a  wise  butterfly  and  a 
sane  Socialist  (O,  rarest  of  all  Socialists!)  and  when 
he  had  enough  he  ceased  from  his  labors.  When  I  last 
saw  him  he  was  sitting  at  ease  and  in  content,  gazing 
into  the  wide  valley  that  spreads  in  such  splendid 
beauty  before  the  region  of  his  habitat,  and  putting 
into  practice  the  least  known  and  best  lesson  that  phi 
losophy  has  ever  taught, — that  of  enjoying  the  Now 
of  which  we  are  sure,  grieving  not  for  the  Then  that 
is  dead,  and  leaving  the  Will  Be  in  the  hands  of  God. 
Monsieur  Boule  de  Neige,  an  aristocrat  of  French 
birth  and  name  but  of  pure  English  extraction,  is 
another  co-owner  in  our  Swiss  estate,  although  he  had 
hated  the  Taunus  forest  and  had  refused  to  partici 
pate  in  its  ownership.  He  disliked  it  because,  being 
ruled  by  German  laws,  the  individual  has  but  little 
freedom  there,  and  his  English  blood  cried  loudly  for 
his  rights  of  individuality.  For  in  England,  no  mat 
ter  how  much  the  minds  and  souls  of  men  continue 
to  be  shackled  by  iniquitous  customs  and  obsolete 
superstitions,  bodies  are  free.  At  the  Taunus  Mon 
sieur  Boule  de  Neige  had  to  wear  a  muzzle,  which 
galled  his  soul;  and  he  had  to  walk  in  leash,  which 
caused  him  to  hate  the  day  he  was  born.  But  in  the 
new  Swiss  estate  he  came  again  into  his  rightful  own, 


SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES        123 

and,  free  from  muzzles  and  leashes  and  the  iron- 
capped  guardians  of  the  German  law,  he  runs,  and 
rolls  in  the  grass,  and  barks  at  the  butterflies  and  bees, 
and  tries  to  imagine  himself  a  wild  dog  and  a  mighty 
hunter.  He  seems  also  to  have  a  much  greater  re 
spect  for  the  family  he  thinks  he  has  charge  of,  for 
in  spite  of  our  folly  in  racing  up  and  down  the  earth 
in  torture-producing  conveyances,  and  of  sometimes 
walking  stiffly  in  unlovely  paths  where  dogs  are  treated 
as  prisoners,  we  at  times  are  wise  enough  to  fly  from 
the  folly  of  what  is  called  civilization  and  return  to 
the  wilderness  from  which  his  and  our  respective  races 
sprang. 

In  this  Swiss  estate  I  have  taken  a  new  and  greater 
dislike  to  many  of  the  men  who  inflicted  upon  the 
youth  of  the  world  the  tedious,  useless  tomes  that 
youth  is  told  it  should  study.  I  wasted  many  precious 
months  over  the  alleged  histories  of  one  Rollin,  who 
knew  no  better  than  to  chronicle  in  detail  the  miser 
able  wars  of  half-savage  conquerors,  and  who  con 
sumed  pages  of  good  type,  and  precious  days  of  my 
time,  over  an  eulogy  of  Hannibal,  who  had  made  no 
better  use  of  the  few  and  fleeting  and  uncertain  years 
of  his  life  than  to  fight  and  pillage  by  wholesale.  If 
I  had  had  wise  teachers,  instead  of  Rollin  I  should 
have  studied  Linnaeus,  and  Audubon,  and  other  real 
educators  (as  my  children  shall  study  Thoreau  and 


124        SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES 

John  Burroughs),  and  then  I  should  have  known 
more  of  the  grasses  and  flowers,  and  of  the  rainbow 
butterfly,  and  of  the  bees  and  birds  and  ants  that 
know  so  well  how  to  make  full  and  proper  use  of  the 
great  estate  they  inhabit. 

I  have  an  interest  in  yet  another  great  estate,  which 
is  located  at  the  dividing  place  of  the  waters  of  a  con 
tinent,  and  is  in  Colorado  and  New  Mexico.  It  consists 
of  a  splendid  range  of  lofty  mountains  which  rear  their 
shining  heads  into  the  region  of  eternal  snows,  and 
which  look  down  upon  the  valleys  and  their  mad  inhab 
itants  with  the  silent  tolerance  born  of  centuries  of  wis 
dom.  Tribes  and  nations  of  men,  now  long  since  dead 
and  forgotten,  passed  up  and  down  those  valleys, 
warring  with  each  other,  building  towns  that  soon 
crumbled  and  were  no  more,  seeking  to  learn  a  little 
of  the  mysteries  of  the  great  nature  that  surrounded 
them, — failing  a  little,  winning  a  little,  hating  a  little, 
loving  a  little, — and  then  passing  on  in  that  mysteri 
ous  progress  that  we  all  are  making,  and  of  whose 
end  and  purpose  we  are  as  ignorant  as  were  they. 
But  the  serene  mountains, — then  as  now  emblems  of 
peace  and  wisdom  and  the  eternal  justice  that  swings 
forever  as  the  greatest  of  nature's  laws, — gazed  on  in 
silence  over  the  wide  valleys  or  up  into  the  infinity  of 
the  fields  of  stars,  and  interfered  not  with  the  humans 


SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES        125 

but  left  each  one  to  make  of  his  life  just  what  he 
would. 

The  best  place  to  view  this  splendid  range  of 
eternal  hills  is  from  a  busy  gold-mining  region,  where 
tireless,  restless  men  are  burrowing  into  the  bosom 
of  the  earth,  like  gnomes,  in  search  of  treasure.  How 
some  of  those  men  have  suffered  to  find  that  gold,  how 
some  of  them  have  hated  each  other  in  their  quarrels 
over  it,  how  some  have  envied  others  its  possession, 
how  some  have  swelled  with  pride  and  believed  them 
selves  better  than  their  fellows  because  they  owned 
a  little  of  it, — how  some  have  even  killed  others  in 
their  struggles  for  it.  And  what  courses  of  good  and 
evil  the  gold  starts  upon  so  soon  as  it  is  found  and 
freed  from  its  prison  of  rocks !  Some  men  will  warp 
their  souls  and  blacken  their  hearts  for  some  of  it; 
some  women  will  sell  their  honor  for  some  of  it; 
thieves  will  steal  it,  blackmailers  and  conspirators 
will  scheme  for  it,  and  some  men  will  give  up  the 
joys  and  freedom  of  youth  and  manhood  and  old  age 
to  gain  it  and  hoard  it!  But,  like  all  things  else  in 
life  and  nature,  more  good  than  evil  will  come  from  it. 
Some  women  will  be  freed  from  drudgery  and  petty 
lives,  children  will  be  educated  who  else  might  pass 
stunted  childhood  in  grimy  factories,  men  will  be  freed 
from  hard  necessity  and  will  find  the  joys  of  leisure 
and  study  and  travel,  charity  will  be  even  a  better 


126        SOME    SOCIALISTIC    ESTATES 

word,  and  mankind  will  be  richer  because  the  new 
gold  is  found,  and  a  few,  because  of  it,  will  enjoy  that 
boon  that  is  the  natural  heritage  of  every  human 
born  into  the  world,  and  which  each  one  will  have 
when  humanity  is  really  civilized, — freedom  from 
poverty.  There  are  some  who  say  that  to  expect  the 
suppression  of  poverty  is  to  expect  the  kingdom  of 
God  upon  earth.  Are  we  then  to  suppose  that  God 
prefers  the  great  majorities  of  humans  to  be  poor? 

But  there  is  an  indescribable  peace  hovering  over 
the  silent  Sangre  de  Cristos,  there  are  memories  of 
the  peace  of  the  Taunuswald  and  of  the  Gurnigel 
forest,  we  seem  to  hear  again  the  song  of  old  Father 
Rhine  as  he  passes  Basle,  and  if  we  will  get  any  good 
from  the  lessons  our  fellow  shareholders  in  our  great 
Socialistic  estates  have  taught  us,  we  will  not  fret  as 
to  the  intentions  of  God  or  the  ultimate  end  of  things, 
but  will  remember,  as  do  the  cuckoos  and  the  butter 
flies,  that  we  are  here  and  the  time  is  now,  and  that 
if  we  will  we  can  make  of  Here  the  best  estate  in 
the  world  and  of  Now  the  best  epoch.  And  on  the 
first  page  of  our  primers  of  Socialism  we  will  write 
down  that  happiness  is  not  a  matter  of  geography,  or 
of  station,  or  of  wealth,  and  that  each  one  is,  for  the 
most  part,  the  arbiter  and  ruler  of  his  own  happi 
ness, — that  each  one  can  have  just  as  many  and  as 
great  estates  of  enjoyment  as  he  will. 


VII 
SUNSET   IN   THE   SAHARA 


Many  of  the  false  things  that  strive  to  impress  upon  us 
that  they  are  apples  of  gold  need  only  to  be  tasted  to  be  found 
to  be  filled  with  bitter  dust.  But  the  golden  trees  keep  put 
ting  forth  their  magical  harvests,  and  the  real  apples  of  gold 
exist. 


T  STOOD  on  a  tower  in  a  village  of  an  oasis  in  the 
Sahara  as  the  sun  was  sinking  low  into  the  west 
ern  horizon.  It  had  been  hot  in  the  oasis,  and  the 
cool  breezes  that  sprang  up  with  the  first  approach  of 
the  evening  were  very  welcome.  It  had  been  the  fete 
day  of  a  Marabout, — a  man  who  had  been  a  murder 
ous  marauder  in  the  name  of  religion,  and  whom  the 
Arabs  are  impious  enough  to  believe  now  sits  in  the 
highest  heavens  by  the  side  of  the  greatest  God, — 
and  all  the  Arabs  and  desert  dwellers  had  celebrated 
the  day.  And  at  the  setting  of  the  sun  they  returned 
from  the  praying  and  dancing  that  had  been  done  be 
fore  his  tomb  to  follow  their  various  pleasures  in  the 
village  that  spread  below  me.  The  sheik  rode  a  pranc 
ing  horse  at  the  head  of  the  returning  procession,  and 
behind  him  ran  a  lot  of  shouting  men;  then  followed 
a  band,  playing  the  weird  music  always  heard  in  Ma 
hometan  lands, — the  mysterious  music  born  of  the 
mysteries  of  the  deserts;  then  a  troop  of  dancing  girls 
who  had  performed  at  the  fete;  and  behind  them  all 
extended  the  great  distances,  and  reposed  the  great 

129 


130 

silences,  of  the  wide  desert.  From  another  direction 
across  the  great  sandy  stretches  a  tired  caravan 
wended  its  slow  way  to  the  oasis  and  to  the  welcome 
rest  and  refreshment  and  comradeship  to  be  found 
there.  In  the  village  streets  fires  were  lighted  before 
the  abodes  of  the  house-dwellers  and  before  the  low 
tents  of  the  Bedouins  as  well,  and  the  scent  of  cooking 
and  the  odor  of  coffee  pervaded  the  air.  Men  sat  in 
quiet  groups,  contemplatively  smoking,  as  they  awaited 
their  evening  meals;  but  not  many  groups  were  quiet, 
for  it  was  a  time  of  celebration  and  from  the  houses 
of  the  dancing  girls  and  from  the  tents  of  the  game 
sters  came  harsh  and  discordant  sounds, — the  vocal 
expressions  of  the  low  joys  of  these  low  people.  And 
so  it  was  restful  for  one  to  turn  his  gaze  from  the 
unclean  and  unlovely  village  to  the  great  desert  that 
had  no  need  for  humanity  or  humanity's  work  to  make 
it  perfect, — to  turn  from  the  vileness  of  men  to  the 
perfection  of  nature.  For  whoever  has  lived  in  a 
desert  oasis  knows  that  its  people  are  vile.  The  pic 
turesque  garments  of  the  desert  dwellers  are  unclean, 
the  souls  of  the  people  are  unclean,  and  they  are  low, 
and  bestial,  and  brutish,  and  ignorant,  and  supersti 
tious,  and  egotistical, — as  all  ignorant  peoples  or  sys 
tems  are.  The  houses  below  me  were  full  of  evil 
smells  and  spoke  mutely  of  insanitation.  In  the  squalid 
village  children  were  being  reared  in  ignorance  and 


'* 

I 


ft  ft 


L 


SUNSET    IN    THE    SAHARA  131 

vice ;  and  women, — much  like  beasts  themselves, — were 
leading  lives  but  little  better  than  those  of  the  wild 
beasts  of  the  forests.  And  how  men  have  slandered 
the  Creator,  for  it  has  been  said  that  men, — and  these 
creatures  were  men, — are  in  the  image  of  God  and 
but  a  little  lower  than  the  angels! 

But  as  the  rays  of  the  receding  sun  grew  more 
nearly  horizontal,  and  the  earth  and  the  silent  desert 
took  on  new  shades  of  color  and  new  appearances  of 
beauty,  so  did  the  town  and  its  motley  population 
change  color  in  the  vision  of  our  minds.  We  had  been 
too  close  to  the  town  before,  too  close  to  see  it  with 
a  just  perspective.  Seen  from  a  height  it  seemed 
stately  and  dignified, — the  result  of  work,  the  fruit 
of  thought.  And  also  its  people  took  juster  places  in 
our  view.  For  above  all  the  squalor  and  ignorance 
and  poverty  and  vice  of  the  place  there  arose  human 
ity,  and  humanity  is  always  instinct  with  latent  good, 
with  powers  for  progress.  The  distance  and  the  wan 
ing  light  hid  the  unloveliness  of  the  village  and  the 
imperfections  of  its  people,  and  those  people  stood 
in  our  views  then  for  what  they  were  and  are, — chil 
dren  of  the  world,  creatures  of  God,  fulfilling  the 
functions  they  were  born  into  flesh  to  perform. 

In  the  west  a  great  sea  of  crimson  spread  over 
the  sky,  and  shafts  of  golden  light  fell  upon  the  sand 
dunes  that  barred  the  view  in  that  direction.  To  the 


i3 2          SUNSET    IN    THE   SAHARA 

southwest  a  mirage  had  lain  for  hours  before,  but 
now  it  had  vanished  and  in  its  stead  lay  a  great  sea 
of  evening  sunlight  that  took  on  added  brilliance  from 
the  heated  sands,  and  seemed  to  be  a  sea  of  molten 
gold.  The  shafts  of  light  that  sped  through  the  at 
mosphere  seemed  to  have  been  fashioned  in  the  per 
fection  of  beauty  by  some  Master  hand, — as  indeed 
they  were, — and  all  that  quiet,  silent  nature  lay  before 
us  in  the  perfection  of  simplicity,  the  simplicity  of 
perfection,  and  the  perfection  and  simplicity  of  beauty. 
And  through  it  we  could  know  why  poetry  has  always 
been  the  natural  speech  of  the  desert-dwellers,  why 
the  honey-bees  of  imagination  always  gathered  rich 
harvests  in  the  deserts,  why  the  long,  perfect  lines  of 
the  desert  rims  have  found  their  way,  and  their  im 
mortality  in  art,  into  the  buildings  of  the  desert  na 
tions. 

Away  in  the  farther  distance  to  the  west  the  steel- 
like  rim  of  the  utter  desert  also  seemed  somewhat 
softened  by  this  mellow  light  that  diffused  all  the  face 
of  nature.  During  all  the  full  hours  of  the  day  that 
rigid  desert  rim  had  seemed  to  repel  us,  to  warn  us 
back,  to  caution  us  that  it  was  the  limit  beyond  which 
we  might  not  go.  But  we  had  found,  as  we  approached 
it,  that  it  ever  receded  before  us,  that  it  surrendered 
to  us  as  we  won  from  it;  and  in  its  softer  appearance 
it  seemed  to  promise  that  it,  like  destiny  and  death, 


SUNSET    IN    THE   SAHARA  133 

would  surrender  its  uttermost  secrets  to  those  whose 
hearts  were  brave  enough  to  approach  it  without  fear. 
And  beyond  it  the  undiscovered  country  seemed  in 
stinct  with  promises  of  rich  realizations,  of  new  knowl 
edges,  of  higher  wisdoms  than  the  known  desert  had 
yet  offered  to  us.  And  we  did  not  seem  out  of  place 
in  that  great  circular  world  of  oasis  and  sand  that  was 
bounded  by  this  rim  of  the  world, — nor  did  the  vil 
lage,  nor  its  dwellers,  nor  even  the  camels  and  ani 
mals  seem  incongruous  or  out  of  place. 

To  the  southeast,  away  in  the  distance,  rose  some 
gray  hills  of  sand  and  stone  that  seemed  strangely  fa 
miliar, — and  one  of  the  remarkable  things  of  the  Great 
Sahara,  which  should,  it  seems,  be  the  land  of  great 
est  strangeness  to  us, — is  that  it  always  presents  scenes 
to  us  that  remind  us  of  other  scenes  in  other  lands. 
This  is  especially  true  to  all  who  have  traveled  in 
our  own  Southwest  and  in  Mexico  and  South  America, 
— and  it  is  true  to  those  who  have  read  any  of  the 
bibles  that  men  know,  or  who  know  the  poetry  of  the 
Persians  and  Arabs.  So  the  strange  desert,  after  all, 
is  not  an  unknown  land  to  any  of  us.  And  those  gray 
hills,  taking  on  more  and  more  somber  tints  as  the 
light  fades,  are  even  more  familiar  to  us  than  are 
the  other  features  of  the  great  sea  of  sand,  for  they 
are  strangely  like  the  cliffs  of  Pu-Ye,  that  slumber,  and 
smile,  and  scintillate,  and  speak  their  silent  messages 


134          SUNSET    IN    THE    SAHARA 

in  the  heart  of  the  Adobe-land  of  our  own  country, — > 

that 

Adobeland,  great  silent  land, 

Weird  world  made  up  of  sky  and  sand, 

Where  the  mirage  mocks,  and  sand-storms  swirl, 

And  brown  peaks  brood  at  the  drear,  dead  world — 

Warm  land  of  sun,  bright  land  of  sky, 

Drear  land  of  valleys  drear  and  dry, 

Dead  land  of  mountains  dead  and  bleak, 

Where  hazes  shift,  and  shadows  seek 

To  hide  the  wastes  by  man  untrod, — 

That  silent  land  where  men  find  God. 

We  have  crossed  the  world  to  find  again  what  we  have 
left  behind,  to  see  in  the  heart  of  Africa  a  thing  whose 
sister  and  counterpart  exists  in  the  heart  of  America. 
And  so  we  find  that  it  is  the  memories  that  men  have 
left  upon  the  earth  that  are  as  interesting  as  is  the 
earth  itself, — for  in  this  Sahara  something  of  the  tale 
of  mankind  has  been  written,  some  of  the  passions  of 
the  human  heart  have  found  expression,  and  some  of 
the  best  aspirations  of  human  souls  have  been  born. 
In  these  great  fastnesses  men  have  found  themselves 
alone  with  themselves  and  with  nature,  and  to  know 
the  meaning  of  the  mysteries  and  the  beauties  that 
surrounded  them  they  have  sought  for  the  truth  about 
God,  which,  if  it  may  be  known,  should  contain  all 
truths.  But  a  little  of  such  a  great  truth  could  be 
learned  in  the  few  hundreds  of  centuries  during  which 
mankind  has  inhabited  the  earth,  and  so  but  a  little 
of  it  is  known, — but  the  first  glimmerings,  but  the  first 


SUNSET    IN    THE    SAHARA  135 

few  lines  of  the  illimitable  book;  and  what  little  is 
known  is  felt  rather  than  proven, — but  it  is  more 
natural  for  humans  to  feel  than  to  prove,  and  perhaps 
feeling  is  as  good  proof  as  we  need  or  shall  have. 
But  to  look  down  upon  this  great  shadow-covered 
world, — for  the  sun  is  almost  gone, — is  to  know  anew 
some  old  truths,  to  know  them  anew  through  the  feel 
ings.  It  is  nature  that  speaks  them, — the  sun  and  its 
farewell  rays,  and  the  shadows  of  the  restful  night, 
and  the  great  immensities  of  the  desert.  And  these 
things  say  to  us  that  our  kind  tortures  itself  with  fears 
of  its  own  invention;  that  this  world  through  which 
we  are  making  our  journey  is  not  a  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death,  but  a  Valley  of  the  Promise  of  Con 
tinuing  and  Endless  Life;  that  evils  vanish  and  disap 
pear,  and  only  good  endures;  that  hatreds  die  and 
only  loves  continue  forever;  that  men  do  not  sin,  be 
cause  they  cannot,  and  that  the  worst  they  can  do  is 
to  walk  for  a  little  time  or  a  little  part  of  eternity  in 
error;  that  we  have  much  for  which  to  be  glad,  and 
nothing  for  which  to  sorrow.  And  we  say,  with  that 
wise  philosopher  who  learned  his  lessons  from  the 
wildernesses:  "Why  should  we  grieve,  we  who  have 
not  ceased  to  wonder?" 

We  feel  the  truths  of  nature,  and  so  we  count  our 
selves  fortunate  to  be  in  this  little  corner  of  the  great 
universe, — that  withal,  however,  may  be  as  important 


i36          SUNSET   IN    THE    SAHARA 

to  its  Maker  and  Owner  as  is  the  greatest  of  the 
things  He  has  builded.  For  in  this  lost  corner  of  the 
little  world  the  great  Law  of  this  Builder  also  en 
dures, — that  Law  that  contains  in  itself  all  laws,  that 
is  not  harsh,  and  that  is  at  once  a  guidance  and  a 
fulfillment, — its  own  justification  and  its  own  reward. 
Men  may, — indeed  must, — err  in  trying  to  translate 
this  Law.  Moses  may  have  confused  with  it  and  inter 
twined  with  it  the  weird  dreams  that  came  to  him  in 
the  silences  of  the  wilderness;  the  vagaries  of  asceti 
cism  may  have  colored  the  translation  that  Buddha 
essayed  to  make;  much  of  the  message  of  Jesus  must 
have  been  lost;  the  lustings  of  his  flesh,  the  super 
stitions  of  his  blood,  and  the  chimeras  born  of  his 
epilepsy,  caused  Mahomet  to  speak  incoherently,  and 
sometimes  madly.  But  by  all  of  these,  and  by  all 
men  who  have  striven  in  truth  and  have  labored  in 
earnestness  in  the  world,  some  few  halting  words  of 
the  great  Law  have  been  spoken. 

The  sun  has  gone.  The  great  desert  lies  under  a 
film  of  darkness  that  seems  to  extend  to  the  uttermost 
end  of  things.  Below  our  tower  are  the  twinkling 
lights  of  a  little  village,  the  cheery  cries  of  a  few  of 
the  countless  millions  of  the  world's  people.  The 
people  sing,  and  fear  not,  for  born  in  their  hearts 
is  the  fearlessness  and  trust  that  all  men  carry  and 
which  all  may  find  if  they  look  within  themselves. 


SUNSET   IN   THE    SAHARA  137 

And  we  come  to  think  again  that  this  great  world, 
upon  which  the  desert  is  but  a  speck,  is  a  good  world, 
and  a  beautiful  and  even  a  joyous  world.  Death  is 
in  it,  but  so  is  life — and  perhaps  those  two  strange 
words  are  but  synonyms.  Toil  there  is  in  the  world, 
but  it  is  a  blessing  even  if  it  sometimes  wears  strange 
disguises;  and  it  walks  always  hand  in  hand  with  rest 
and  joy.  Hatred  is  in  the  world,  but  it  vanishes;  and 
love  is  also  in  the  world,  and  it  has  endured,  and 
grown,  and  increased  since  the  first  man  stood  upright 
and  marvelled  at  the  sun. 

The  night  has  borne  its  wise  counsels.  The  chim 
eras  in  our  brains  have  been  blown  away  by  the  even 
ing  breezes  that  are  cooling  the  desert's  broad  face; 
we  were  mistaken  in  our  first  tired  judgment  of  the 
desert  and  the  oasis  and  its  people,  and  now  we  feel 
that  all  of  them  are  good  and  right  and  that  they  exist 
with  as  much  reason  and  justice  as  do  any  of  the 
things  that  men  know  either  in  reality  or  in  divination. 


VIII 
DEAD    CITIES    OF   THE    DEAD 


"So  fleet  the  works  of  men, 
Back  to  the  earth  again; 
Ancient  and  holy  things 
Fade  like  a  dream." 


VIII 
DEAD    CITIES    OF   THE    DEAD 

A  S  one  gazes  upon  the  virile,  busy,  teeming  life  of 
any  city  it  is  difficult  for  him  to  realize  that  in 
time  the  city  as  well  as  all  the  individual  entities  it 
contains  will  die.  But  it  is  true  that  that  law  of  death 
which  swings  down  from  the  uttermost  sun  that  men 
have  measured  to  the  most  infinitesimal  ephemeride 
will  also  function  upon  all  the  cities  that  men  have 
builded  or  will  ever  build.  Indeed  it  is  not  only  the 
cities  that  shall  die,  but  all  things  that  men  can  see 
are  fated  to  undergo  changes  akin  to  that  mysterious 
change  that  we  call  death.  The  great  earth  swings 
in  its  mighty  course  daily  and  always  nearer  to  the 
sun,  into  which  in  time  it  must  fall, — and  there  will  be 
no  more  the  earth.  And  when  the  sun  has  gathered  to 
itself  again  the  planets  which  are  its  children,  it  and 
its  sister  systems  must  also  fall  into  some  great  astral 
sun  and  be  no  more  as  they  now  are.  And  on  and  on, 
through  the  great  immensities  of  the  universe,  through 
the  distances  that  have  no  endings  and  the  spaces  that 
are  without  boundaries,  this  seeming  destruction  will 
continue.  So  to  look  upon  a  dead  city  is  but  to  look 

141 


i42        DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD 

upon  a  thing  that  has  met  the  fate  of  all  things  but  a 
little  in  advance  of  the  existing  ones. 

We  may  grieve  in  our  ignorance  that  cities  have 
died,  yet  many  things  died  with  them  that  cause  us 
not  grief.  In  Pompeii  tyrants  must  have  oppressed 
the  weaker  ones  of  their  fellows, — but  those  tyrants 
have  long  been  gone  from  the  scene  of  their  tyrannies, 
and  the  period  of  their  oppression  was  not  long.  In 
the  narrow  streets  of  this  city  that  was  builded  for 
pleasure  many  things  other  than  pleasure  must  have 
been  known,  much  misery  must  have  been  felt  and  seen 
and  endured,  and  behind  the  walls  of  the  houses  that 
to  us  are  so  full  of  interest  the  load  of  life  must  often 
to  many  have  seemed  heavier  than  they  could  bear. 
But  they  did  not  have  need  to  suffer  long,  for  without 
the  hastening  of  grim  old  Vesuvius  they  would  soon 
have  gone  on  in  the  great  march  of  that  evolution 
which  is  beyond  our  powers  to  comprehend, — or  sunk 
into  the  nothingness,  and  freedom  from  suffering,  and 
freedom  from  any  further  pursuit  by  a  possibly  malev 
olent  nature,  which  is  the  only  other  solution  to  the 
Riddle  of  the  Beyond.  What  narrow  lives  must  have 
been  lived  by  the  dwellers  in  those  narrow  houses, — 
for  the  things  that  almost  two  thousand  years  have 
given  they  had  not.  And  yet  how  much  broader  and 
fuller  some  of  their  lives  may  have  been  than  most  of 
the  lives  that  humans  know  how  to  live  after  the 


DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD        143 

lapsing  of  all  those  slow  centuries!  But  the  best  of 
life  was  not  much  known  in  Pompeii,  for  Pompeii  was 
a  Roman  city,  and  Rome  was  evil,  and  wrought  in 
evil,  even  though  it  dignified  its  evil  with  the  name 
of  progress.  To  think  that  the  little  houses  of  this 
old  city  were  but  the  resting  places  and  recreation 
shelters  of  those  cruel  and  arrogant  warriors  who 
fared  forth  through  all  of  the  world  they  knew  in 
search,  not  of  goodness  and  peace,  but  of  loot  and 
glory  and  selfish  profit,  takes  away  much  of  the  pleas 
ure  of  contemplating  its  recovered  skeleton. 

Far  down  toward  unhappy  Calabria,  as  one  passes 
from  Pompeii,  are  the  few  remains  of  the  skeleton  of 
another  dead  city  which  must  have  been  more  beau 
tiful  than  the  Pompeiians  could  even  comprehend.  Its 
site,  which  was  once  salubrious,  is  now  pestilential. 
Evil  mists  hover  above  it,  fever-charged  exhalations 
rise  from  its  poisoned  ground, — but  there  still  rise  in 
the  majesty  of  beauty  and  death  the  great  stone  mes 
sages  left  to  a  careless  and  not-understanding  poster 
ity, — the  great  temples  left  by  the  old  Greek  builders 
upon  the  now  fever-stricken  swamps  of  dead  Paestum. 
Save  the  mighty  builders  miscalled  Goths  there  have 
been  no  real  architects  since  the  Greeks.  Those  of 
Paestum  were  but  colonists,  settled  far  from  the  foun 
tain  head  of  their  inspiration,  and  yet  outside  of 
Greece  there  does  not  stand  to-day  in  Europe  such 


144        DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD 

marvels  of  perfection  and  of  beauty,  such  sermons  and 
poems  in  stone,  as  are  those  old  temples  that  the  mias 
matic  mists  and  the  winds  of  the  sea  have  not  yet, 
through  all  the  long  tally  of  centuries,  been  able  to 
wear  back  into  the  earth  again.  If  an  infidel  stood 
at  the  temples  of  Paestum  he  could  not  help  reverently 
saying:  "Whatever  creed  the  builders  of  these  struc 
tures  had,  I  am  convinced  that  that  creed  was  good." 
Art  is  a  word  much  misused,  and  much  folly  is  uttered 
in  its  name;  but  at  Paestum  one  knows  that  it  has  a 
meaning,  and  that  the  thing  it  stands  for  is  a  useful 
and  a  beautiful  thing.  For,  while  most  art  consists 
of  weak  and  puerile  imitations  of  the  perfection  of 
nature,  the  splendid,  mysterious  temples  of  half-for 
gotten  Paestum  vie  with  nature  itself  in  harmony, 
beauty,  and  majesty, — and  in  the  silent  messages  they 
bear  that  nature,  and  life,  and  form,  and  beauty,  and 
God,  are  good.  From  Paestum  to  Pompeii  is  as  from 
Notre  Dame  to  the  Moulin  Rouge,  as  from  Paris  to 
Brighton.  We  prate  much  of  degeneracy  in  these 
flaunting,  boastful,  empty  days  of  ours,  but  when  we 
gaze  upon  the  silent,  mysterious  beauties  of  these 
temples  we  come  to  know  that  we  are  all  degenerate. 
We  prate  of  our  iron  roads,  of  our  machines  that 
grind  out  things,  and  things,  and  things;  but  among 
us  all,  in  all  the  lands  that  we  so  boastfully  call  civil 
ized,  there  lives  no  man  who  could  build  the  peer  of 


DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD        145 

those  crumbling  edifices,  and  but  few  who  could  ap 
preciate  them  if  they  were  built.  Shall  we  study 
poetry?  It  is  written  in  the  perfect  lines  of  Paestum's 
temples.  Shall  we  seek  pictorial  beauty?  What  pic 
ture  made  with  tawdry  brush  and  paints  knows  the 
perfection  of  drawing,  the  perfection  of  perspective, 
the  silent  message  which  is  art's  mission,  that  are 
found  in  those  perfect  lines?  Shall  we  say  that  music 
is  the  art  that  has  no  peers?  Music  is  harmony,  and 
on  all  the  face  of  the  earth  no  more  harmonious 
things  exist  than  those  splendid  works  reared  in  al 
most  forgotten  ages  by  wholly  forgotten  men.  Among 
the  things  that  Paestum  teaches  is  that  architecture  will 
ever  be,  as  it  has  ever  been,  the  great  mother  of  all 
the  arts,  and  that  all  nations  who  forget  this  primal 
truth  will  have  no  real  art  at  all.  And  as  one  stands 
beneath  the  shadow  of  these  perfect  things,  art  per 
forms  its  mission  of  falling  into  step  with  nature, — 
and  the  world  seems  larger  and  better  and  more  beau 
tiful  than  it  had  seemed  before.  Space,  which  is  sug 
gested  by  the  majesty  of  those  daring  lines,  seems  to 
take  on  even  grander  proportions.  Space?  We  chil 
dren  talk  of  things  of  which  we  know  not, — for  space 
extends  forever  and  forever,  upward,  outward,  down 
ward,  without  beginning  or  end,  and  always  and  al 
ways  onward.  And  yet  at  Paestum,  in  little  struc 
tures  builded  on  the  face  of  a  little  earth  by  micro- 


i46        DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD 

scopic  men,  all  this  is  intimated.  And,  too,  that  Per 
vading  Soul  of  the  Universe,  that  Nature  or  Force  or 
God  from  which  we  have  no  place  of  retreat,  against 
which  we  have  no  power,  from  which  we  may  not 
even  think  in  secret,  is  also  intimated.  Paris  the  Mag 
nificent  is  the  most  splendid  city  that  men  have  yet 
reared  under  the  gaze  of  the  sun;  but  in  all  Paris  there 
stands  no  thing,  and  has  never  stood  any  thing,  so 
perfect  and  so  beautiful  as  are  those  old  temples  that 
are  slowly  but  majestically  sinking  back  into  the  hungry 
soil  of  weary  old  Italy. 

And  then,  down  in  the  waste  places  hard  by  the 
Aures  Mountains,  stands  another  dead  city, — another 
city  that  was  reared  by  the  hard  injustice  of  cruel 
Rome.  The  Roman  system  contained  much  that  was 
good,  else  it  could  not  have  risen  so  high  or  endured 
so  long;  but  it  came  to  contain  more  of  evil,  else  it 
would  have  continued  until  now.  Timgad  was  an 
outpost  of  Rome,  and  a  City  of  Reward  to  those  brave, 
heartless,  heroic,  cruel  Legionaries  who  helped  to 
carve  its  bloody  paths.  Rome  was  but  a  body  without 
a  real  soul, — a  machine, — a  system  based  upon  the 
mathematics  of  loss  and  gain,  of  definiteness  of  pur 
pose,  of  persisting,  untiring  calculation  and  ambition, 
of  the  brute  force  of  numbers  and  wealth.  And  these 
things  are  all  exemplified  in  Timgad, — for  every  city 
is  an  emblem  of  the  soul  of  the  people  who  builded  it. 


DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD        147 

The  veteran  Legionaries  for  whom  Timgad  was 
builded,  and  to  whom  it  was  given,  were  set  there  in 
that  then  fat  land  to  control  the  Barbarians.  Who  had 
asked  them  to  control  those  Barbarians?  What  right 
had  they,  what  real  superiority,  that  entitled  them  to 
rule  those  whose  assent  had  not  been  given  to  their 
rule  ?  Men  do  not  yet  know  how  long  Timgad  stood, 
but  it  is  certain  that  the  Barbarians  outlasted  it, — and 
no  one  remains  in  all  the  wide  world  to  be  sorry.  The 
fierce  tribes  of  the  Chawia, — from  whom  its  site  had 
been  stolen, — in  time  came  down  upon  Timgad,  as 
Barbarians  later  and  in  all  places  came  down  upon 
all  the  iron  empire  of  Rome, — and  Timgad  ceased  to 
be.  To  make  sure  that  the  hated  and  arrogant  ad 
vocates  of  the  right  of  might  should  come  no  more 
forever,  they  cut  and  burned  the  forests,  they  dammed 
the  springs,  they  let  in  the  desert.  And  for  centuries 
Timgad  was  forgotten.  The  desert,  which  endures, 
sent  its  winds  to  aid  the  Barbarian  natives  of  the  soil, 
and  the  sands  blew  up  and  buried  Timgad  from  the 
sight  of  men.  And  in  that  one  place  at  least,  for  cen 
turies,  no  men  tacitly  or  openly  uttered  their  egotisti 
cal  dictum  of  "I  am  holier  than  thou  art;  submit  thou 
to  my  domination."  The  sands  of  the  desert  will  en 
dure,  and  in  time  they  will  again  baffle  the  watchfulness 
of  men,  and  again  will  be  hidden  from  the  world  the 
skeleton  of  this  old  city  that  stood  as  an  emblem  and  an 


148        DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD 

exemplification  of  man's  inhumanity  to  man,  whose 
other  name,  at  that  time,  was  the  Roman  Empire. 

And  then,  a  long  distance  across  the  soundless  des 
erts  and  the  sounding  seas,  on  by  the  cities  of  myriads 
of  busy  men,  there  lies,  in  a  forgotten  and  almost  un 
known  land,  another  smaller  but  more  ancient  dead 
city, — Sankay-week-carey  it  is  now  called  by  the  few 
who  have  enough  interest  in  it  to  give  it  a  name  at  all. 
It  is  in  America,  but  the  most  of  Americans  have  been 
too  busy  in  upbuilding  a  newer  and  better  nation  in 
the  family  of  nations, — or,  in  some  instances,  in  at 
tempting  to  replant  the  ancient  evils  that  our  Founders 
sought  to  forever  escape  for  our  Nation, — to  take 
even  enough  heed  to  know  of  the  existence  of  this  old 
crumbling  town.  Yet  in  America  there  are  ruins  per 
haps  as  ancient,  and  certainly  as  numerous  and  as  full 
of  interest,  as  exist  in  any  country  in  the  world.  But 
just  now  the  price  of  shares  and  the  doings  of  those 
whom  the  resources  of  our  new  soil  have  made  rich, — 
too  often  merely  rich, — are  matters  of  too  absorbing 
interest  to  permit  us  to  waste  time  over  Sankay-week- 
carey  or  its  fellows, — for  it  is  but  one  in  a  great  region 
of  dead  towns.  But  in  spite  of  stock  markets  and 
imitation  aristocracies;  in  spite  of  the  battles  between 
honorable  labor  and  its  honorable  natural  ally,  capi 
tal,  which  engrosses  us  so  much;  in  spite  of  the  passing 
of  time  and  the  invention  of  new  creeds,  the  skeleton 


DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD        149 

of  Sankay-week-carey  persists, — a  document  from  an 
age  long  gone,  from  a  civilization  that  has  now  but  a 
shredded  remnant  left  upon  the  earth.  And  it  persists 
and  stands  under  skies  more  perfect  than  the  skies  of 
Italy,  fanned  by  breezes  as  soft  as  the  breezes  of 
Ceylon,  gazing  over  a  scene  of  greater  magnificence 
than  is  looked  upon  by  any  living  city  in  the  world, — 
and  in  a  desert  as  beautiful  as  is  the  golden  desert  of 
Arabia.  It  was  builded  in  three  parts,  and  something 
of  all  remain.  First  there  were  troglodytic  homes, 
carved  in  the  shape  of  conical  bee-hives  out  of  the 
sheer  faces  of  the  towering  cliffs, — for  enemies  could 
not  climb  to  those  places  if  they  knew  not  the  dizzy 
ways  cut  deviously  in  the  rocks;  then,  when  the  little 
nation  was  stronger,  there  was  a  fortress-town  builded 
upon  the  crest  of  the  soaring  cliff  itself,  and  under  its 
protection  in  time  there  grew  up  another  great  mass 
of  buildings,  forming  a  single  building,  at  the  cliff's 
base.  That  which  is  now  in  the  best  preservation  is 
the  part  of  the  city  that  stood  upon  the  cliff.  It  was 
builded  in  the  shape  of  a  six-pointed  diamond,  and 
builded  of  the  most  enduring  stone.  Its  houses  rose 
to  four  stories,  they  were  all  joined  together,  and  their 
roofs  were  flat  so  that  watchmen  might  walk  upon 
them.  There  were  two  great  stone  gates,  each  roofed 
over  like  the  houses.  It  was  a  city  of  peace,  but  it 
and  its  lands  were  surrounded  by  hordes  of  marauding 


150        DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD 

robbers,  and  its  warlike  defences  were  necessary  for 
its  preservation.  Within  its  walls  were  storehouses 
for  food  and  reservoirs  for  water,  and  just  without 
its  guarded  gates  there  was  its  Sacred  Field,  its  City 
of  the  Dead.  Even  its  enemies,  who  would  wreak  any 
cruelty  upon  its  living,  would  not  molest  its  dead,  and 
it  was  safe  to  place  them  upon  the  brow  of  that  ma 
jestic  cliff  before  which  spreads  as  marvelous  a  pano 
rama  of  beauty  as  the  eyes  of  men  have  seen. 

Sankay-week-carey,  if  one  may  judge  from  the  es 
timates  of  geologists  who  compute  the  time  it  took  for 
the  talus  of  its  cliffs  to  form,  may  have  been  builded 
coeval  with  the  pyramids;  and  in  that  long  march  of 
time  since  then  the  very  face  of  the  landscape  has 
changed.  There  was  a  time  when  rivers  flowed  down 
the  valleys  that  now  are  dry  and  waterless,  when 
groves  cast  their  grateful  shade  where  now  is  only 
vacancy  and  desert;  and  what  now  are  but  expanses  of 
sterile  nothingness  once  were  rich  fields.  And  yet 
it  can  be  seen  that  even  during  its  time  of  inhabitancy 
the  region  became  partly  desert,  for  old  pathways  can 
be  found,  worn  by  the  pressing  of  myriad  feet  into 
solid  rock,  that  lead  away  over  the  long  miles  to  the 
greater  river  that  flows  in  the  wider  valley  in  the  dis- 
stance,  and  which  continues  to  support  life  and  com 
munities  and  towns.  The  storehouses  built  in  the 
walled  city  must  have  held  the  crops  reared  in  those 


DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD        151 

distant  fields,  and  to  those  fields  great  companies  of 
toilers  must  have  wended  their  ways  to  till  the  soil. 
For  this  people  was  an  agricultural  people,  although 
living  in  the  midst  of  hunters  and  marauders.  In 
times  of  peace  what  pleasant  companionship  must 
have  been  known  in  those  groups  of  men  and  women 
who  wended  their  way  across  the  sunrise  to  toil  at 
that  most  ancient  and  best  of  all  toils!  How  many 
bright  eyes  looked  love  to  brighter  eyes  as  the  home 
ward  way  was  wended!  How  many  wives  and  chil 
dren,  and  fathers  and  mothers,  stood  upon  the  house 
tops,  far  up  on  that  sheer  cliff,  to  watch  for  the  return 
of  the  loved  ones !  If  one  may  judge  from  the  legends 
and  customs  of  their  descendants,  those  people  had 
some  strange  laws.  No  one  was  allowed  to  own  prop 
erty  that  he  did  not  use,  no  one  could  inherit  property, 
and  each  one  was  entitled  to  a  home,  and  a  chance  to 
win  his  support.  To  live  thus  removed  from  the 
blighting  fear  of  want,  to  live  in  a  community  where 
equal  chance  was  almost  free  to  all,  must  have  made 
life  there  good  and  sweet  for  all.  And  perhaps  that 
iron,  restless,  tireless  thing  that  we  revere  and  call  by 
the  name  of  Progress  could  profit  by  remembering  some 
of  the  simpler  laws  of  those  old  and  simpler  peoples. 
We  may  know  these  things  and  a  few  more  of 
Sankay-week-carey  and  its  numerous  sister  towns  be 
cause  all  the  people  of  the  blood  of  the  nation  that 


152        DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD 

builded  them  are  not  yet  gone  from  the  earth.  Like 
the  Bigoudin  in  Brittany, — perhaps  the  oldest  race  in 
Europe,  persisting  almost  unchanged  in  the  midst  of 
all  the  mighty  changes, — some  decadent,  degenerate, 
hopeless  remnants  of  that  race  of  American  builders 
still  persist,  in  ever  diminishing  numbers  and  in  ever 
increasing  poverty,  dwelling  yet  near  the  ancient  habi 
tat  of  their  ancestors,  treasuring  sacredly  the  legends, 
creeds  and  laws  of  that  older  time,  and  hoping  ever 
against  reason  and  hope  for  the  return  of  the  Messiah 
of  their  race,  who  promised  that  after  his  people  had 
endured  centuries  of  evil  he  would  return  to  restore 
them  to  their  ancient  dominion.  The  tale  of  time  and 
of  sorrows  has  been  long,  generation  after  generation 
has  surrendered  its  bones  back  to  the  dust  again,  the 
conflict  with  nature  for  food  and  with  crowding  in 
vaders  for  lands  upon  which  to  live  has  caused  this 
people  in  weariness  to  forget  many  of  the  old  tales 
they  knew,  and  much  of  what  they  believed  to  be  his 
tory.  But  enough  remains  to  enable  those  with  suffi 
cient  patience  to  piece  out  the  identification  of  those  old 
towns,  and  to  prove  that  the  few  dwindling  tribes  of 
the  Pueblo  Indians  are  really  descendants  of  the  Cliff- 
Dwellers.  They  have  lasted  too  long  In  the  world 
if  the  world  is  right  in  the  hastening  progress  it  is 
making,  for  there  is  no  room  in  our  plan  for  quiet, 
unprogressive  people  such  as  they. 


DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD        153 

Among  the  numerous  dead  towns  that  surround 
Sankay-week-carey  is  Pu-Ye,  which  gazes  upon  the 
silence  of  the  soundless  land  from  a  coign  of  vantage 
as  magnificent  as  has  been  found  by  any  town  builders 
in  the  world.  A  world  in  monochrome  spreads  before 
the  observer, — yet  not  so,  for  that  seeming  mono 
chrome  takes  on,  as  the  sun  runs  his  course,  all  the 
splendid  colors  that  those  western  deserts  know.  In 
the  farther  distance  in  the  west  are  some  great,  shad 
owy  blue  mountains,  shimmering  through  the  light, 
dry  mists  that  hang  about  their  crests.  Far  off  to  the 
east  some  other  mountains  are  seen,  wearing  the  silver 
crowns  of  eternal  snows.  In  all  other  directions  the 
view  is  limited  only  by  the  power  of  vision,  and  miles 
and  leagues  of  gray  and  mauve  and  golden  sands 
stretch  on  and  on,  seeming  to  pass  from  knowledge 
into  mystery,  from  faith  into  doubt,  from  the  known 
on  deep  into  the  great  unknown.  How  we  recoil  from 
space  when  we  first  consider  it!  And  how  we  come  to 
know  that  we  must  not  fear  it, — for  if  we  are  immortal 
we  must  be  chosen, — or  doomed, — to  make  our  prog 
ress  ever  through  space  and  time  and  lives  and  worlds  ! 

Light  and  nebulous  mists  rise  far  down  in  the  lower 
valleys,  and  from  our  great  height  seem  to  beckon  to 
us  and  invite  us  to  follow  them.  But  if  we  follow  they 
recede  and  we  cannot  overtake  them.  And  then  they 
seem  to  mock  us,  and  to  call  out  that  they  are  but 


154        DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD 

phantoms,  and  that  we  who  seek  them  are  but  other 
phantoms,  and  that  the  world,  and  the  great  fields  of 
stars  that  at  night  look  down  in  such  unfeeling  loveli 
ness  and  coldness  upon  this  desert  land, — and  human 
ity  and  its  institutions  and  its  hopes  and  fears, — are 
but  other  phantoms  still.  They  call  to  us  that  mankind 
is  useless  and  of  no  worth  in  nature's  insane,  phantas- 
magorical  schemes.  They  ask  of  us  to  reflect  upon 
those  other  men,  those  myriads  and  tribes  and  races, 
who  once  stood  upright  in  the  places  where  now  we 
stand,  and  to  remember  that  they  are  now  but  dust,  and 
that  all  their  hopes  and  fears,  their  plans  and  dreams, 
their  loves  and  hates,  are  as  though  they  had  never 
been  at  all.  With  such  thoughts  the  city-weight  of  life 
rushes  anew  upon  tired  brains,  and  again  one  sees  the 
weary  panorama  of  the  struggle  for  existence,  the 
hopeless  quest  for  happiness,  the  warring  and  killing 
and  greeds  of  our  humanity  that  ought  to  inherit  the 
earth  in  peace, — and  the  inevitable  graves  beyond  the 
shortening  vista  of  the  years.  But — a  ray  of  sunlight 
falls  through  a  pass  in  the  silent  mountains,  the  face 
of  the  desert  valley  is  illumined  and  warmed  and  takes 
on  new  color,  the  eternal  peace  that  rests  like  a  benison 
and  an  answered  prayer  upon  all  that  land  finds  its 
way  to  our  hearts,  and  we  know  that  the  weary 
thoughts  that  are  bred  in  cities  of  care  have  no  proper 
places  here.  The  peace  of  this  wide  and  splendid  na- 


DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD        155 

ture  steals  into  our  thoughts  anew,  quiets  our  fears, 
calms  our  troubled  spirits,  and  then  we  see  with  better 
understanding  a  little  of  the  great  scheme  of  things, — 
and  with  new  eyes  we  see  the  great  panorama  that  lies 
outspread  before  us.  In  the  eyes  of  imagination  we 
see  the  processions  of  men  and  of  long  generations  of 
men  who  have  traversed  these  wide  deserts  and  these 
weird  valleys, — and  gone  on,  hopefully  and  unafraid, 
to  whatever  destiny  nature  deemed  it  best  for  them  to 
meet.  And  one  comes  to  believe  that  when  our  own 
fleeting  generation,  too,  is  gone,  nature  will  also  lead 
it  to  whatever  is  best  for  it  to  know.  And  we  come  to 
know  that  we  need  not  much  trouble  as  to  nature's 
intentions,  and  to  feel  that  we  could  not  understand  if 
the  entire  plan  could  be  explained  to  us  in  the  simplest 
words,  for  we  should  be  but  as  babes  listening  to  a 
disquisition  on  geometry.  Scientists  have  managed  to 
spell  out  a  single  word  in  nature's  great  book, — not  the 
first  word  nor  the  last  one,  but  one  from  some  mis 
understood  part  of  the  middle.  But  from  even  that 
meager  beginning  men  have  been  able  to  understand  a 
little  of  what  has  been,  and  to  dimly  guess  a  little  of 
what  will  be.  And  in  the  little  that  has  been  learned 
we  find  a  harmony,  a  plan,  a  working  toward  a  greater 
and  better  perfection  than  we  can  even  understand. 
We,  too,  are  parts  of  the  plan, — perhaps  as  important 
as  the  suns,  perhaps  no  more  important  than  the  ants, 


156        DEAD  CITIES  OF  THE  DEAD 

whose  busy  cities  line  the  view  from  old  Pu-Ye.  And, 
cheered  with  the  belief  that  what  great-souled  Laf- 
cadio  Hearn  called  the  Great  Thing,  that  pervades  all 
things,  is  wise,  and  just,  and  benevolent,  we  say  fare 
well  to  this  magnificent  and  matchless  panorama  that 
enshrines  these  dead  cities  of  tribes  that  may  not  be 
dead,  and  consider  another  dead  city  in  another  desert 
land. 

Far  down  under  the  tropic  sun  of  Oaxaca  there 
endure  the  temples  and  tombs  of  some  forgotten  or 
lost  race,  that  are  strangely  similar  in  many  ways  to 
some  of  the  temples  and  tombs  that  line  the  course  of 
the  Nile.  There  is  an  old  codex  that  shows  in  paint 
ings  the  wanderings  and  sufferings  and  conquests  of  a 
red  race,  which,  to  judge  from  its  first  pictures,  might 
have  made  the  first  step  in  its  long  journeylngs  from 
the  old  region  of  the  forgotten  cliff-cities.  And  hard 
by  Mitla  and  its  temples  there  exists  a  few  caves  of 
the  same  form  and  kind  as  those  of  the  region  of 
Sankay-week-carey.  Have  we  come  upon  the  meeting 
place  of  two  nations  and  two  alien  civilizations? 
There  is  much  to  indicate  that  such  is  so.  For  the  tem 
ples  of  Mitla  are  adorned  with  paintings  that  must 
have  been  painted  by  people  of  the  same  race  as  those 
who  made  their  historical  codex,  and  yet  those  tem 
ples,  those  splendid  carvings,  and  those  mighty  Egyp 
tian-like  columns  are  not  the  work  of  that  Northern 


DEAD    CITIES    OF   THE    DEAD       157 

race.  Did  some  Egyptian  fleet,  in  that  long  lost  time, 
get  blown  across  the  dread  Atlantic  to  land  upon  the 
shores  of  America,  and,  going  northward,  meet  and 
amalgamate  with  that  cliff-dwelling,  codex-painting 
race  from  the  North?  The  Egyptians  wandered  often 
and  far, — and  Timbuctoo  was  a  foundation  of  theirs. 
They  circumnavigated  Africa, — and  what  less  strange 
than  that  an  Egyptian  people  builded  the  Egyptian- 
esque  structures  of  Central  America?  But  the  temples 
of  Mitla,  uncared  for  and  almost  unstudied,  are  sink 
ing  back  again  into  the  embrace  of  the  common  mother, 
and  we  may  not  know  the  secrets  they  have  guarded 
for  so  long.  Old  Spanish  priestly  legends  say  that 
Mitla  was  the  temple  city  and  city  of  royal  tombs  of  a 
race  that  was  fighting  for  existence  against  the  en 
croaching  Aztecs  when  the  Conquistador es  entered 
that  land, — but  that  legend  does  not  help  to  decipher 
those  fading  pictures  that  are  left  upon  Mitla's  walls. 
But  soft  winds  from  two  seas  blow  over  Mitla,  it  is 
roofed  with  the  sapphire  sky  of  the  Southland,  life  is 
unhurried  there, — and  why  perplex  ourselves  with 
legends  and  codices? 

From  Mitla  to  Carthage  is  a  far  cry,  both  in  dis 
tance  and  in  time,  and  yet  they  had  one  great  fact  in 
common,  and  also  in  common  with  the  cities  of  to-day, 
— they  were  inhabited  by  men  and  women  who  were 
much  alike,  despite  the  distances  and  the  centuries, 


158      DEAD    CITIES    OF   THE    DEAD 

with  men  and  women  who  joyed  and  sorrowed,  who 
cried  and  laughed,  who  loved  and  suffered,  who  won 
and  lost,  and  who  withal  found  much  more  good  than 
evil  in  this  spinning,  hastening  world,  as  do  we  all. 
When  their  accounts  were  cast  they  surely  found,  as 
shall  we,  that  more  friends  had  been  true  than  false, 
that  they  had  heard  more  kind  than  evil  words,  that 
life  contained  more  good  than  evil  fortune. 

What  joy  must  have  filled  the  dauntless  hearts  of 
Dido  and  her  little  band  when  they  came  to  the  splen 
did  site  upon  which  they  determined  to  build  their  city ! 
And  ^Eneas  must  have  been  indeed  strong  in  his  soul 
to  tear  himself  away  from  such  a  beauty  spot  of  the 
world.  For  in  all  the  world,  while  others  may  be  its 
peers,  no  fairer  site  for  a  city  could  be  found.  Washed 
on  one  side  by  the  bluest  sea  outside  the  tropics  that 
waves  its  greetings  to  the  sky,  on  the  other  by  a  dimp 
ling  bay  that  seems  the  happy  baby  of  the  sea,  with  the 
mighty,  mystic  mountains, — and  enduring  Tunis, — in 
the  distance,  the  marble  halls  of  Carthage  surely  were 
set  in  a  frame  becoming  their  own  grandeur.  It  is  com 
plained  that  Carthage  was  but  a  commercial  city, — yet 
people  of  the  same  blood  as  the  Carthaginians  dis 
covered  new  lands  for  the  future  development  of  hu 
manity's  progress,  they  planted  industries  where  be 
fore  had  been  but  sloth,  they  carved  out  new  roads 
where  none  had  been  before  in  which  the  nations  are 


DEAD    CITIES    OF   THE    DEAD       159 

still  marching,  and  perhaps  they  proved  that  labor,  no 
matter  of  what  kind,  is  honorable,  and  that  all  labors 
wrought  in  good  intent  are  equally  honorable.  And 
since  then  until  now  mankind  has  learned  no  better 
lesson  than  that  "Labor  is  prayer."  But  Carthage  now 
is  but  a  covered  heap  of  potsherds  and  stones  and  mar 
bles.  The  full-breasted  Bedouin  girl  at  the  tombs  who 
offers  her  kisses  for  francs  is  of  more  importance  in  the 
world  than  Hannibal  and  Hamilcar.  And  the  city, 
and  the  great  race  that  builded  it  in  its  glory,  are  but 
dim  and  vanishing  memories. 

What  mighty  processions,  the  dead  of  these  dead 
cities!  What  high-born  hopes,  what  leaping  ambi 
tions,  were  buried  with  them !  But  we  need  not  grieve, 
nor  cavil  against  that  universal  death  that  took  them 
all  as  its  toll.  For  whether  the  law  that  causes  change 
and  death  is  just  or  unjust,  it  is  immutable,  and  it  will 
continue.  And  as  it  is  as  universal  as  the  universe  it 
self,  as  it  is  a  function  of  the  nature  that  whenever 
really  understood  has  been  found  to  function  in  right 
and  justice,  it,  too,  must  be  just.  And  that  same  nature 
has  implanted  something  within  us  that,  despite  the 
wailings  of  perverted  philosophers,  despite  our  igno 
rance  and  our  fears,  teaches  each  one,  and  proves  to 
him  beyond  science  and  scepticism  and  creed  and  phil 
osophy,  that  Nature,  or  God,  or  the  Great  Thing,  func 
tions  forever  and  in  all  places  and  ages  in  immutable, 


160      DEAD    CITIES    OF   THE    DEAD 

perfect  and  absolute  right.  And  so  to  look  upon  a 
dead  city  need  give  us  no  sadness, — for  in  them  the 
misunderstood  thing  that  we  call  wrong  has  ceased, 
and  their  peoples  have  gone  on,  on  the  road  of  the 
only  enduring  principle  in  the  universe. 


To  LOOK  UPON  A  DEAD  CITY  NEED  GIVE  Us  No  SADNESS 


THE    SEA 


"Then  there  is  the  sky  and  the  water,  a  festoon  of  foam 
which  whitens,  a  passing  sail,  a  gull  flapping  its  wings, in  the 
blue  and  luminous  vapor;  a  clear  immensity,  the  grandest  of 
all  immensities !" 


THE  SEA 

/T^HERE  is  nothing  else  existing  in  all  the  works  of 
nature  that  appeals  to  men  so  much,  and  in 
so  many  ways,  as  does  the  sea ;  nothing  that  is  so  much 
loved,  so  bitterly  hated,  so  feared,  or  so  admired. 
The  sea  is  emblematic  of  all  we  know  of  strength,  of 
weakness,  of  gentleness,  of  fierceness,  of  hideousness, 
and  of  beauty.  It  is  older  than  the  rock-ribbed  moun 
tains,  it  was  ancient  before  the  first  loam  valleys  were 
ground  from  the  primeval  granite,  and  it  had  passed 
through  countless  changes  and  had  settled  in  its  pres 
ent  form  aeons  and  cycles  before  men  appeared  upon 
the  earth.  The  sea  has  always  been  known  to  men, 
since  that  dim  time  when  Palaeolithic  tribes  first 
caught  fishes  from  its  waves,  and  yet  it  is  the  unknown 
and  seemingly  unknowable  part  of  the  world  to-day  as 
it  was  when  the  first  savage  men  gazed  upon  it  in 
awe  and  wonder.  Men  have  measured  the  incompre 
hensible  distances  of  the  high  heavens,  they  have 
weighed  the  planets,  they  have  counted  the  waves  of 
light  that  flash  from  world  to  world  in  the  infinite 
spaces,  they  have  sent  their  knowledge  down  through 

163 


1 64  THE    SEA 

molecules  to  the  uttermost  atoms,  they  have  mastered 
some  of  the  secrets  of  the  great  mystery  called  life; 
but  the  sea  has  always  baffled  them,  and  the  secrets 
that  have  been  hidden  under  its  rolling  waves  during 
the  lapsing  of  all  the  long  centuries  are  nearly  all 
mysterious  secrets  yet.  We  have  read  only  the  first 
page  of  the  great  book  of  the  sea,  we  have  passed  only 
to  the  borderland  of  the  knowledge  it  contains,  and 
the  greater  portion  of  its  mysteries  and  secrets,  its 
golden  wonders  and  its  marvellous  beauties,  are  as 
yet  only  guessed  at  and  surmised.  We  know  it  to  be 
much  greater  in  extent  than  all  the  lands  upon  the 
surface  of  the  earth;  we  know  that  its  waters  teem 
with  vegetable  and  animal  life;  we  know  that  it,  like 
all  things  else  in  the  universe,  is  ruled  by  Immutable 
and  unchangeable  laws,  and  that  its  tides  rise  and  fall 
in  accord  with  a  changeless  edict  laid  down  in  the  first 
morning  of  existence;  but  we  know  these  things  only 
because  we  possess  a  little  superficial  knowledge  of 
small  areas  of  its  surface;  and  what  forms  of  beings, 
what  grades  of  intelligence,  and  what  mysteries  of 
existence  remain  undiscovered  in  its  depths  we  do  not 
know  and  cannot  even  surmise.  But  in  spite  of  all  its 
mystery  and  the  strong  jealousy  with  which  it  guards 
its  secrets,  despite  the  terrors  it  inspires  in  the  breasts 
of  human  beings,  we  know  that  it  is  the  most  beautiful 
thing  on  all  the  fair  face  of  the  great,  beautiful  earth, 


THE    SEA  165 

— beautiful  in  a  thousand  ways,  with  beauties  that  are 
ever  changing,  ever  new,  and  always  sublime. 

The  sea  has  always  possessed  a  strange  fascina 
tion  for  mankind.  Savages  make  long  journeys  in 
order  to  hold  religious  ceremonies  on  its  shores,  thus 
giving  it  recognition  as  the  most  sublime  thing  they 
know;  and  all  peoples  seek  it  for  pleasure,  for  health, 
for  gain,  for  food,  for  study  or  for  knowledge.  And 
to  all  who  seek  it,  to  all  who  ask  of  it,  it  gives.  It 
gives;  but,  holding  true  to  the  great  laws  of  polarity 
and  equilibrium  that  pervade  all  things,  it  also  takes; 
and  often  it  is  terrible  in  its  taking. 

Places,  and  phases  of  nature,  have  always  pos 
sessed  strong  fascinations  for  men,  the  love  of  place 
being  so  strong  indeed  that  to  be  unwillingly  detained 
from  a  well  known  and  well  loved  place  has  been 
found  to  generate  a  mental  and  physical  disease, — a 
disease  that  has  been  fatal  to  thousands  of  transported 
slaves.  Strong  and  highly  developed  indeed,  or  else 
at  the  other  extreme  of  stunted  and  meagre  develop 
ment,  is  the  man  for  whom  some  place,  some  broad 
desert  or  rolling  plain,  some  quiet  valley  or  pleasant 
hillside,  does  not  possess  a  fascination,  a  not-under 
stood  appeal  that  calls  him  with  a  call  almost  as 
potent  and  strong  as  that  of  blood  calling  to  blood, 
of  kindred  calling  to  kindred,  of  friend  calling  from 
the  depths  of  his  nature  to  the  depths  of  the  nature  of 


1 66  THE    SEA 

his  friend.  The  great  silent  mountains  call  us,  quietly, 
but  insistently,  but  with  such  force  that  in  time  we 
must  answer  the  call.  The  deserts  also  call  those  who 
are  akin  to  them;  and  those  who  know  and  love  the 
deserts  are  never  happy  if  they  are  long  deprived  of 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  broad,  silent  stretches  of 
the  beloved  places  that  speak  to  them  in  a  language 
untranslatable  into  human  speech.  But  the  strongest 
call  of  all  is  the  call  of  the  sea  to  its  lovers.  The 
sea  calls,  and  the  one  who  is  called  tires  of  the  most 
finished  cities,  of  the  greenest  fields,  of  the  leafiest 
•groves,  of  all  the  pleasures  of  the  land;  and  nothing 
will  cure  the  restlessness  of  his  spirit,  or  bring  hap 
piness  to  him  again,  until  he  feels  the  breath  of  the 
great  sea  blowing  into  his  nostrils,  until  he  sees  the 
billows  tumbling  in  all  their  youth  and  strength  and 
careless  joy,  until  he  hears  again  the  many-tongued 
speech  of  the  sea  that  speaks  to  all  the  understandings 
of  his  soul. 

How  the  sea  takes  our  vanity  from  us!  Petty 
men,  who  are  esteemed  important  or  great  in  some 
little  corner  or  city  or  nation  of  the  earth,  learn  when 
they  go  upon  the  face  of  the  mighty  waters  that  a 
man  is  but  as  a  breath  of  wind,  as  a  drop  of  water, 
as  a  mist  that  vanishes  in  the  night.  They  learn  that 
the  universe  is  infinite,  that  time  is  so  long  that  we 
can  comprehend  neither  its  beginning  nor  its  end,  and 


w 

C/5 

W 
H 

O 

u 

w 


THE    SEA  167 

that  we  have  claim  to  greatness  only  in  that  we  too 
are  numbered  among  the  works  of  nature, — that  we 
are  as  great,  and  no  greater,  than  is  a  fish,  or  a  tree, 
or  a  bird.  And  that  is  one  of  the  best  lessons  that 
we  learn  from  the  sea, — that  we  are  so  little,  and  so 
ignorant,  and  so  weak  and  futile,  that  the  very  crown 
of  our  ignorance  is  to  presume  to  possess  egotism. 
The  beginning  of  knowledge  is  to  appreciate  that  we 
are  ignorant,  and  so  the  sea  is  the  greatest  master 
of  education  in  the  world. 

We  know  not  quite  why  we  love  the  sea  so  much, 
and  so  strangely;  for  with  our  love  there  is  mingled 
fear,  and  often  hatred.  We  may  love  it  so  much  be 
cause  it  is  in  its  greatness  all  that  we  in  our  weakness 
are  not;  because  it  is  at  once  so  old,  so  young,  so 
fierce,  so  gentle,  so  joyous,  so  sorrowful,  so  beautiful 
and  so  hideous.  For  the  sea  is  all  these,  and  more. 

The  sea  is  the  oldest  thing  in  the  world.  When 
first  the  great  earth-mass  of  vapors  and  mists  began  \ 
to  solidify,  the  sea  was  born, — born  of  the  darkness 
and  the  silence, — and  it  is  older  than  anything  men 
have  seen  except  the  suns  and  the  stars.  It  is  so 
old  that  cycles  are  but  as  centuries  to  it,  and  centuries 
but  as  minutes.  It  was  inexpressibly  ancient  before 
it  gave  birth  to  the  continents  and  islands  that  are 
its  children.  It  was  laden  with  age,  and  surfeited  with 
the  sorrows  of  eternities,  before  it  wed  with  heat  and 


1 68  THE    SEA 

gave  birth  to  the  first  life  in  cell  or  flesh  that  came 
into  the  world.  And  it  will  always  be  old.  Lesser 
things  may  die,  and  change,  or  end,  their  forms  of 
existence,  and  so  they  know  that  however  great  may 
be  the  sorrows  that  come  to  them,  the  end  will  also 
surely  come.  But  the  sea  must  exist  on  and  on, 
through  cycles  and  aeons  and  long  eternities  before 
its  end  will  be.  It  may  be  its  fierce  sorrow  because 
this  is  so  that  causes  it  at  times  to  rise  in  the  brute 
might  of  its  superdemoniac  strength  and  rend  and 
destroy  the  more  perishable  things  that  have  not  to 
wait  through  eternities  for  death  and  change.  Roll 
on,  old  sea !  Often  you  seem  to  be  under  a  curse,  a 
curse  that  will  not  let  you  die.  And  as  the  long  tally 
of  the  dying  centuries  passes  into  eternity  over  you, 
you  must  continue  to  roll  and  heave,  and  cry  out  in 
your  great  loneliness  to  the  unheeding  skies,  for  you 
must  remain  for  ages  a  prisoner  to  unchangeableness, 
and  rest  is  not  for  you. 

But  again  the  sea  seems  to  be  the  youngest  thing 
in  the  world.  The  thrill  of  quick  young  life  pulses 
through  its  broad  bosom  as  freshly  to-day  as  it  did  in 
that  long-ago  first  morning  of  its  existence.  It  is  as 
fresh,  as  unchanged,  as  eager,  as  virile,  as  strong,  as 
joyous  and  as  young  as  though  to-day  were  the  first 
day  that  had  been  since  it  separated  itself  from  the 
mists  and  nebulas  and  became  a  thing  apart.  "Young, 


THE    SEA  169 

young,  I  am  ever  young,"  seems  one  of  the  glad  songs 
the  sea  sings  as  its  waves  ripple  and  dimple  and  sport 
and  gladden  in  the  light  of  the  sun.  Men  fade  from 
the  face  of  the  earth,  and  become  dust  again;  the  sun 
and  the  stars  shine  for  them  no  more  forever;  for 
them  there  is  an  end  to  the  blowing  of  the  soft  airs  of 
the  skies,  to  the  sight  of  bright  flowers,  to  the  loving 
embraces  of  dear  ones;  and  as  they  fade,  and  turn 
to  dust,  and  are  forgotten,  so  also  their  nations  fade, 
and  pass  away,  and  are  forgotten.  But  the  sea, — the 
ever-young  sea  that  called  them  with  its  irresistible 
voice,  that  supplied  the  earth  with  rain  and  freshened 
the  airs  so  that  they  might  live  out  their  little  spans  of 
life — lives  on  and  on,  in  endless  youth.  The  rock- 
ribbed  mountains  may  grow  so  old  that  even  the  light 
est  winds  of  the  heavens  can  rob  them  and  blow  the 
dust  they  steal  from  their  sturdy  sides  into  the  valleys; 
so  old  that  the  rains  and  the  waters  can  wear  their 
stern  granite  ribs  into  sand  that  in  time  will  become 
mold.  But  the  sea, — the  glad,  youthful,  joyous  sea, — 
seems  to  be  under  the  spell  of  a  beneficent  blessing  that 
keeps  it  ever  young.  For  it,  if  any  years  are  misspent, 
the  errors  of  them  can  be  rectified  during  the  great 
future  of  its  perpetual  youth.  If  there  are  any  regrets 
for  lost  opportunities,  it  may  rest  content  in  the  knowl 
edge  that  the  great  cycles  of  time  that  will  pass  over  it 
will  bring  the  opportunities  again.  What  dreams  of 


1 70  THE    SEA 

immortality  the  sea  brings!  Dim  dreams  of  a  time 
that  might  come  when  age,  and  weakness,  and  fatigue, 
and  weariness,  and  disease  and  decay,  would  drop 
from  mortals  as  an  unused  cloak,  never  again  to  be 
donned! 

The  sea  is  the  fiercest  thing  in  the  world.  The 
ferocity  of  volcanoes,  of  earthquakes,  of  the  hurri 
canes  that  sweep  the  land,  are  as  nothing  in  their  re 
sults  compared  with  the  dread  devastation  that  the  sea 
has  done.  All  the  ferocity  of  all  the  races  of  men  and 
of  the  other  animals  is  so  slight  compared  with  that 
of  the  sea  that  it  counts  as  nothing.  The  victims  of 
all  the  great  conquerors,  who  have  swept  men  into 
graves  as  a  miller  sweeps  grains  into  his  bin,  are  but 
a  tiny  few  in  comparison  with  the  millions  who  have 
given  up  their  lives  to  the  sea.  It  has  despoiled  mul 
titudes  of  women  of  lovers  and  husbands,  it  has  robbed 
countless  numbers  of  men  of  sweethearts  and  wives, 
it  has  taken  innumerable  scores  of  children  from  the 
arms  of  parents.  It  has  swallowed  up  great  fleets  of 
ships  and  dashed  them  as  debris  and  useless  waste 
upon  its  bottom.  It  has  risen  in  its  ferocity  and  greed 
against  the  land  itself,  and  has  engulfed  smiling  val 
leys  and  tall  mountains.  It  has  drawn  great  cities  into 
its  insatiable  maw,  and  has  laid  waste  populous  coun 
tries.  And  after  all  these  crimes  it  has  gone  its  way, 
shrieking  in  maniac  glee  in  answer  to  the  cries  of 


THE    SEA  171 

those  it  has  despoiled  and  whom  it  has  robbed  of  all 
the  world  held  that  made  life  endurable.  And  yet 
it  is  loved;  yet  it  stands  as  the  work  of  nature  that 
has  broadest  and  deepest  meaning  to  humanity,  yet 
it  remains  as  the  greatest  symbol  of  all  that  they  hope 
for  or  long  for  that  men  possess.  And  above  all,  in 
spite  of  its  ferocity,  it  continues  to  be  more  indescrib 
ably  beautiful  than  any  other  of  the  wondrously  beauti 
ful  things  that  kind  nature  has  set  before  the  eyes  of 
mankind. 

To  describe  the  beauties  of  the  sea  is  as  impos 
sible  as  to  paint  the  lily;  to  understand  or  comprehend 
the  mystery  of  its  beauties  as  impossible  as  to  under 
stand  the  mysteries  of  birth  and  death.  We  can  only 
say  that  it  is  beautiful,  as  beautiful  as  the  light  in  the 
sweet  eyes  of  a  loved  one,  as  the  flowers  that  smile 
from  the  hillsides  of  tropic  lands,  as  the  dreams  that 
come  in  the  night  to  make  us  hope,  and  sometimes 
believe,  that  we  shall  know  other  lives  in  young  other 
worlds  even  more  beautiful  than  is  this  one.  And 
its  beauties  change  with  every  coast,  and  with  every 
degree  of  distance,  but  they  remain  always  surpassing 
description.  During  a  storm  its  strength  makes  its 
beauty  intense,  and  as  the  great  waves  roll  in  billows 
like  unto  mountains,  as  the  white  sprays  dash  madly 
from  wave  crest  to  wave  crest,  as  the  lightnings  hiss 
downward  from  lowering  clouds  and  seem  to  kiss 


172  THE    SEA 

its  surface  in  fierceness  and  passion,  it  is  even  as  beau 
tiful  as  when  it  rolls  in  sweetest  peace.  And  when, 
in  quieter  moods,  the  sunlight  falls  upon  its  gently 
heaving  bosom,  and  myriad  sparks  of  light,  like 
scintillating  diamonds,  flash  upon  its  face,  it  takes  on 
another,  but  an  equally  perfect,  beauty. 

Of  all  the  wondrous  works  that  men  have  done, 
the  little  of  mastery  that  they  have  gained  over  the 
sea  is  greatest.  That  little  atoms  of  men  can  devise 
tiny  mites  of  boats  that  will  ride  safely  and  truly  over 
the  boundless  wilds  of  the  great  waters  is  as  great  a 
thing  as  has  yet  been  done.  But  the  sea  is  master  still, 
and  it  remains  true  that  those  who  go  down  to  the  sea 
in  ships  do  so  in  great  peril;  for  the  sea  is  not  con 
quered  even  though  at  most  times  it  is  submissive.  No 
greater  seeming  miracle  is  known  than  for  a  ship  to 
sail  across  the  sea,  to  remain  above  the  waves,  and  to 
find  its  true  way  across  the  trackless  distances  and 
through  the  darkness  and  the  nights  to  its  port  of  des 
tination.  The  conquering  of  the  air  is  no  greater. 

To  stand  upon  the  deck  of  a  ship  and  gaze  into 
the  banks  of  a  black  wall  of  impenetrable  fog  brings 
one  very  close  to  the  great  Mystery  of  Things.  Some 
times  the  darkness  seems  like  a  great  impassable  wall 
against  which  the  feeble  lights  of  the  ship  beat  fruit 
lessly  and  hopelessly.  The  darkness  is  so  intense  and 
so  all-pervading  that  it  brings  thoughts  of  that  ancient 


THE    SEA  173 

time  when  the  earth  was  nebulae,  when  there  was 
nothing  but  "darkness  piled  upon  darkness  and  there 
was  no  light  at  all."  And  one  can  imagine  that  if 
he  could  at  that  time  have  had  being  he  would  then, 
as  now,  have  felt  the  great  mystery  of  the  darkness, 
the  great  silent  peace  that  the  darkness  contains, — 
and  that  the  reasonable  right  of  things  would  have 
been  as  apparent  then  as  it  is  now. 

The  sea  is  like  humanity,  like  destiny,  like  life  and 
being.  If  viewed  with  distempered  eyes,  if  looked 
upon  with  the  gaze  of  fear,  if  shrunken  from  in  terror, 
or  hated  in  abhorrence,  it  seems  truly  a  terrible  thing, 
ravening  like  myriads  of  insane  beasts,  devouring  all 
that  it  lusts  for,  and  making  a  mockery  of  all  that  is 
lovely  or  sacred  in  the  world.  But  if  one  brings  to  his 
contemplation  of  the  sea  some  understanding  of  its 
great  affinity  with  all  else  that  is,  he  sees  that  it  truly 
is  like  humanity,  destiny  and  life,  and  that  it  is  all  the 
more  wondrous  and  beautiful  because  that  is  so.  Life 
and  destiny,  like  the  sea,  are  broad  and  deep,  and 
they,  like  it,  pass  human  understanding;  but  as  we 
learn  their  mysteries  we  find  them  beautiful  and  good; 
and  as  we  learn  the  mysteries  of  the  great  deep  so  do 
we  also  find  them  good  and  beautiful.  Myriads  of 
human  beings  have  perished  in  war,  but  without  war 
mankind  would  yet  be  enthralled  to  the  strong  and 
rapacious  few.  So  the  sea  joins  its  voice  to  all  other 


174  THE    SEA 

things,  and  speaks  out  again  that  great  old  truth  that 
whatever  is  is  right  in  being. 

The  sea  is  most  beautiful  in  the  South.  Where 
it  washes  the  rocky  base  of  ill-starred  Martinique, 
where  it  smiles  between  Vesuvius  and  Capri,  where  it 
laps  the  rugged  shores  of  Morocco,  or  seems  to  spring 
to  kiss  that  white  vision  rising  from  its  depths  that 
men  call  Cadiz,  it  is  even  more  beautiful  than  where 
it  rolls  and  surges  against  the  colder  shores  of  North 
ern  lands.  It  is  beautiful  where  the  Isles  of  Greece 
rise  from  it  and  seem  to  be  great  jewels  studding  a 
cloth  of  purple.  And  at  Nice,  where  the  Bay  of 
Angels  spreads  like  an  azure  carpet  for  a  sea  goddess 
to  gambol  upon,  it  is  again,  and  differently,  beautiful. 
It  is  at  sunset  that  it  puts  on  its  greatest  beauty  here. 
Shades  of  purple  fall  over  the  northern  Alps  and 
across  the  distant  Esterel,  the  receding  light  intensifies 
the  whiteness  of  the  everlasting  snows  that  lie  in  such 
pure  peace  upon  the  higher  mountain  tops,  and  in  the 
Western  sky  there  comes  a  glow  that  no  painter  born 
of  woman  has  ever  been  able  to  fasten  upon  canvas, 
and  no  son  of  man  has  ever  been  able  to  write  of 
truthfully  in  books.  If  one  stands  on  the  shore  of 
the  sea  at  this  place  at  sunset,  and  sees  the  great  golden 
mass  of  the  sun  sinking  behind  the  Esterel,  the  thought 
of  some  beautiful  old  superstition  irresistibly  comes, 
as  that  legend  of  the  American  Indians  that  tells  that 


THE   SEA  175 

the  sun  is  fated  to  make  his  long  journey  across  the 
sky  each  day,  but  that  at  evening,  when  his  task  is 
finished,  a  welcome  awaits  him  in  the  palace  of  his 
bride  who  dwells  in  the  sea,  over  the  western  edge  of 
the  world, — the  bride,  who,  when  especially  desirous 
of  making  him  welcome,  diffuses  the  whole  sky  with  a 
glorious  saffron  and  golden  glow  to  make  him  know 
that  rest  will  be  his  after  his  toils  and  that  love  and 
joy  await  him  at  the  end  of  his  journey.  It  seems 
that  such  a  sunset  cannot  be  in  a  land  where  men  op 
press  men,  and  rob  each  other  of  their  chances 
of  dwelling  upon  the  earth  in  peace  for  the  few  days 
that  lie  between  them  and  the  time  when  their  journey 
too  is  done.  It  seems,  rather,  like  a  glorious  glimpse 
of  a  happy  world,  where  is  no  death  and  no  weakness, 
no  poverty  and  no  suffering,  no  envy  and  no  crime, — 

"  Where  no  one  shall  work  for  money, 
And  no  one  shall  work  for  fame, 
And  only  the  Master  shall  praise  us, 
And  only  the  Master  shall  blame." 

It  seems  like  a  glimpse  given  by  an  angel  or  a  god 
or  a  spirit  of  light  into  a  world  where  all  is  good,  and 
true,  and  beautiful,  and  right;  a  view  of  the  world 
that  we  seem  to  reach  in  our  best  dreams;  a  world 
where  all  that  the  hearts  of  humans  have  pined  for  is 
theirs,  freely,  and  given  with  great  joy,  and  not 


1 76  THE    SEA 

grudgingly.  And  as  the  sun  sinks  deeper  into  the 
West,  and  the  shadows  steal  in  heavier  and  deeper 
masses  over  the  mountains  and  the  sea,  we  come  to 
think  for  a  little  time  that  perhaps  all  that  we  have 
seen  in  our  imaginings  is  true;  that  this  world  that 
surrounds  us  and  holds  us,  and  in  which  we  are  con 
fined,  does  actually  contain  nothing  but  that  which  is 
in  reality  good;  that  all  is  true,  even  if  we  do  not 
understand;  and  that  all  that  is  is  wholly  and  incon- 
trovertibly  right.  For  how  could  the  sea  remain  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth,  or  the  earth  follow  its  orbit,  or 
the  solar  system  revolve  as  a  part  of  the  great  astral 
system,  if  anything  were  wrong?  If  the  earth  should 
lose  a  pound  of  its  weight,  or  if  a  single  one  of  the 
millions  of  planets  should  revolve  for  one  day  in  the 
wrong  direction,  what  chaos  might  result!  All  seems 
to  be  right,  even  the  ignorance  which  prevents  us  from 
realizing  that  this  is  true.  All  is  beautiful,  for  beauty 
is  but  another  word  for  truth,  even  if  our  eyes  and 
our  souls  are  not  sufficiently  developed  and  opened  to 
enable  us  to  see  all  the  beauties  that  so  abundantly  and 
prodigally  exist  about  us  on  all  our  journey  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave. 

As  we  learn  a  few  of  these  truths,  of  which  the 
world  is  so  full,  how  much  more  beautiful  seems  the 
sea, — and  not  only  the  sea,  but  the  stars,  and  the 
ferns,  and  the  butterflies,  and  all  else  that  is  within 


THE    SEA  177 

sight  of  our  eyes  or  hearing  of  our  ears !  And  as  we 
stand  by  the  shores  of  the  sea,  and  hear  the  tide  tire 
lessly  and  restlessly  pursuing  its  endless  work  of  grind 
ing  the  pebbles  into  sand,  we  listen  to  the  murmur 
of  the  waves  as  they  come  singing  in  to  kiss  the  shore, 
and  they  seem  to  take  on  a  speech  that  we  can  under 
stand,  and  to  say: 

"We  are  the  waves  of  the  sea,  the  unconquerable 
sea,  the  boundless  sea,  God's  sea,  that  has  existed  since 
the  beginning  of  things,  and  will  exist  in  some  form  or 
way  forever  and  forever.  We  were  born  of  love,  we 
endure  in  strength,  we  teach  wisdom.  We  know  the 
soft  kisses  of  the  winds,  the  genial  blessings  of  the 
sun,  and  the  mysterious  love  of  the  moon  that  draws 
us  and  thrills  us  and  helps  us  to  be.  We  sing,  for 
all  life  is  beautiful;  we  murmur,  for  in  our  hearts  is 
deep  happiness;  we  laugh,  for  we  are  strong  and 
young  and  free.  We  go  where  we  list,  we  break  upon 
shores  separated  by  the  width  of  the  world  from  each 
other,  and  always  and  ever  we  live,  we  live !  We  are 
of  the  sea,  and  without  us  there  would  be  no  sea.  We 
are  of  the  sea,  the  mighty  sea  that  was  fashioned  be 
fore  the  continents  took  form.  We  are  parts  of  the 
sea,  as  human  beings  are  parts  of  the  great  universe 
that  is  set  in  space  of  such  dimensions  that  in  it  is  no 
east  nor  west,  no  up  nor  down,  no  limit  and  no  end. 
We,  like  the  human  beings,  are  small,  but  like  them, 


1 78  THE    SEA 

we  are  parts  of  all  that  is.  So  we,  and  the  humans 
and  flowers  and  all  things  else,  are  dear  to  the  heart 
of  the  nature  that  fashioned  us,  and  we  sing  in  joy 
because  of  this." 

And  as  the  waves  glisten  in  the  glow  of  the  fading 
light,  and  the  shadows  grow  ever  deeper  over  the  face 
of  the  earth,  the  grand  old  sea  itself  takes  voice  and 
sings  a  song  that  is  attuned  to  human  ears ;  and  it  says : 

"I  am  the  sea;  the  oldest,  the  youngest,  the  weakest, 
the  strongest,  the  most  ravenous,  the  most  merciful, 
the  most  hideous  and  the  most  beautiful  thing  that 
exists  in  all  this  great  world  that  spins  its  mysterious 
way  in  magic  round  the  sun.  I  am  all  of  these  things, 
I  am  all  of  these  things,  and  in  all  of  them  I  stand 
for  right,  as  even  the  atoms,  and  the  birds,  and  the 
stars  are  right.  And  all  is  well  with  them  as  all  is 
well  with  me  I" 

And  so  forever  surges  the  sea,  so  forever  it  sings 
its  great  songs  that,  if  we  learn  to  understand,  tell 
us  ever  to  hope,  and  to  work,  and  to  fear  nothing 
outside  ourselves. 

THE   END 


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EKESTAtUVS        I 
FMflhiellers  *  StallonerJ 
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